Piqua Baptist Church

2 Kings chapter 6. We’re continuing on in a series we’ve been in for a little while, working our way through the book of Kings. We are in 2 Kings, chapter 6. If you don’t have a Bible here, grab one from the chair in front of you, and you’ll find our reading today in 2 Kings on page 312. We have a lot of Bible to read this morning, so let’s just jump right in.

Here’s the central claim we’ll be making today: God is your provider and protector, who is more able and far more willing to meet your needs in the fulfillment of His purposes than you could have ever imagined. God is your provider and your protector, and He is more able and far more willing to meet your needs in the fulfillment of His purposes than you could have ever imagined. And may the Lord give us eyes to see that reality from the text before us this morning. Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, many are the enemies of these Your people, and many are their needs. And they are Your people, and because they are Yours, they have overcome them — these needs — for greater is He who is in them than he who is in the world. May this text before us this morning teach that to us all. Spirit of the Lord, will You please give eyes to Your people, ears to Your people, that they may see the glories of Your Son and hear of His magnificence. Would You grant them faith to trust You in time of great danger and in time of great need. For the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Amen.

During the ministry of the Lord Jesus, some people came to the apostle Peter and asked him for money to pay the mandatory temple tax — money which he didn’t have. And the Lord Jesus told him to cast a line into the sea, and the first fish he catches, to look in its mouth. And when Peter did, he found enough money to pay the temple tax, and then some. God is a good provider.

Later in his life, the apostle Peter was arrested for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. An angel in the middle of the night woke him. The doors of the prison opened, and he went free. And later in his ministry, the same thing happened again. He was arrested for preaching Christ, this time sentenced to be killed, and an angel woke him in the middle of the night. His chains fell off, and he went free. The Lord is a good protector.

PBC, I intend, the Lord enabling, this morning to convince you of one thing: that God is your provider and God is your protector, and that He is more able and far more willing than you can imagine to meet your every need in the fulfillment of His purposes. Some of you came here today with great confidence that God was your provider, great confidence that God is your protector, and I mean to show you through this text that your confidence ought to be much, much greater than it is. And some of you came here with little confidence that God is your provider and your protector, and I mean to show you from this text that you are far better supplied and far safer than you would ever dare imagine.

There are six — we’ll call them segments — that we’ll consider in 2 Kings 6–8 this morning. These six segments seem unrelated at times, a little strange perhaps, even disturbing, as we’ll see in a minute. But through every one of these segments, the author of Kings is showing the audience, and us, that God is their provider, and God is the protector of all who turn to Him in faith.

Let’s consider the first two segments. 2 Kings chapter 6. This is the word of the Lord.

Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “See, the place where we dwell under your charge is too small for us. Let us go to the Jordan and each of us get there a log, and let us make a place there for us to dwell.” And he answered, “Go.” Then one of them said, “Be pleased to go with your servants.” And he answered, “I will go.” So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was felling a log, his axe head fell into the water, and he cried out, “Alas, my master! It was borrowed.” Then the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, he cut off a stick and threw it in there and made the iron float. And he said, “Take it up.” So he reached out his hand and took it.

Once when the king of Syria was warring against Israel, he took counsel with his servants, saying, “At such and such a place shall be my camp.” But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, “Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are going down there.” And the king of Israel sent word to the place about which the man of God told him. Thus he used to warn him, so that he saved himself there more than once or twice.

And the mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled because of this thing, and he called his servants and said to them, “Will you not show me who of us is for the king of Israel?” And one of his servants said, “None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber.” And he said, “Go and see where he is, that I may send and seize him.” It was told him, “Behold, he is in Dothan.” So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city.

When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

And when the Syrians came down against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, “Please strike this people with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Elisha. And Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.” And he led them to Samaria.

As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha said, “O Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see.” So the Lord opened their eyes and they saw, and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria. As soon as the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “My father, shall I strike them down? Shall I strike them down?” He answered, “You shall not strike them down. Would you strike down those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.” So he prepared for them a great feast, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the Syrians came no more on raids into the land of Israel.

Our first segment is set in the context of a building project. The prophet Elisha is running some sort of school of the prophets — a seminary, perhaps, in the old days, or like a Jedi training center, something cool like that. They’re out of room, and so they call for an expansion. While felling timber for this new building, one of the guys chopping down a tree has the axe head fly off his axe and land in the drink — it sinks to the bottom of the Jordan River. He calls for the prophet and says, “Alas, my master! It was borrowed. It’s not mine.”

Now, this is the Iron Age. It’s not like he can just run down to Ace Hardware and replace the axe head. This fellow is on the hook for paying back the man whose axe it was. And he does the right thing: he turns to the man of God. And Elisha cuts off a stick and throws it in the water, and the iron floats, and the guy just takes it out of the water and puts it back on the axe. Job done. And you’re thinking, what in the world does this have to do with anything?

But this kind of thing happens throughout the book of Kings. There are these big, massive displays of God’s glorious power shown to many people, and then there are these small, minor needs where God shows His glorious power to few. Big need, small need — God’s power meets them all.

The axe head is a small need compared to the need that comes next. The prophet of God is being hunted by the enemy of Israel, the king of Syria. Here’s how it happened. The king of Syria — we’ve met him many times in this passage already, and we’re going to meet him again a few more times — his name is Ben-hadad. He’s warring against Israel.

Now, this should cause us to pause for a second. If you were with us last Lord’s Day, you remember we read the account of Yahweh healing Naaman, the general of the Syrian army and servant of Ben-hadad. He had leprosy, and God healed him of leprosy. He became a follower of Yahweh, and then he returned to Syria. Well, shouldn’t Naaman’s faith have had at least some effect on the king — to let the king know that maybe you don’t mess with whatever god exists in Israel? Well, Naaman’s faith had little effect on the king. And so the king of Syria is running raids into Israel again, stealing goods and making slaves.

Oh, but poor Ben-hadad — business is slow, because wherever he goes, Israel seems to be able to predict that he’s going to be there and then avoid him. Consequently, the same exact thing happens to me when I go deer hunting. And the king smells a rat: One of our guys is telling the king of Israel where I’m going. But then one of his servants tells him, “No, no, no — it’s not us. It’s that meddling Elisha. He knows every word you speak in your bedroom, and he’s telling the king so they can get away.” And so Ben-hadad puts a hit out on the prophet. They gather up an army and go against the city in which Elisha is staying.

Elisha’s servant gets up early one morning, and he goes out, perhaps to have his morning coffee, and he sees an entire army has surrounded the city — horses and chariots — and he freaks out. What are we going to do? I mean, he’s staring death in the face. These men will spare no one. But the servant does the exact same thing as the seminarian did: he goes right to the man of God. In fact, he uses the exact same Hebrew phrase: “Alas, my master!”

And Elisha tells his servant something I think all of us should memorize. I think this should be etched upon our very souls. Verse 16: “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

The servant can’t see it. Not yet. But he’s about to. Elisha prays, the Lord opens his servant’s eyes, and he sees that they are not just surrounded by Syrian horses and Syrian chariots, but by horses and chariots of fire all around — angel armies guarding them against the enemy of God. It’s two men against this great army, and the enemy is outnumbered. Because greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.

The reformer Martin Luther put it like this in a hymn, which happens to be my favorite hymn of all time:

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing; were not the right man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabaoth, His name, from age to age the same, and He must win the battle.

Many of us are thoroughgoing materialists. We would never admit to such a thing, but we go throughout our days thinking very little, if at all, about the great cosmic battle that is taking place around us. Your struggle, dear Christian, is against cosmic powers in an unseen realm. And it is no small skirmish here or there — the enemy is playing for keeps. And your enemy has become quite adept at convincing you that he doesn’t exist. But we need not fear such an enemy, because if God is for us, who can be against us? Luther goes on in his hymn and writes:

Though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us.

With the right Man of God on our side, we are never outgunned. We are never outmanned. Let that devil rage, because one single word from the risen Christ will fell him.

Elisha knows this. He is totally unfazed by this Syrian threat. And this is not some kind of stoic resignation — come what may, it is what it is. No, this is soaring confidence in God, who is his protector. He prays, because, Christian, this is how we fight: not with guns, not with swords, but with prayer. We pray, and we preach. The weapons of our warfare are not flesh and bone — they’re words. Our weapons are words: words spoken to God, and words spoken about God.

And the Lord strikes these attackers with blindness. And this is my favorite part of the story. Elisha comes right out of the city and meets the enemy. And he tells them, “This is not the way. This is not the city. You guys have the wrong address. I’ll show you where Elisha is — follow me.” And then he leads a blind army. All right, guys. Reach out. Take the hand of the person in front of you. Be very careful. Walk slowly — we don’t want anyone falling on their sword. Listen to my voice, and follow me. And he takes them to the capital city of Israel.

Now imagine being the king of Israel, and you’re in your courtroom, and some watchman runs in and says, “King, king, you’re not going to believe this — come here.” And you go up on the city walls, and you look out, and what do you see? Strings of armored soldiers holding each other’s hands, cresting over the horizon, stumbling because they’re afraid of tripping over rocks. And the prophet Elisha, whom you don’t really like all that much, leading them, encouraging them: “Come on, guys. Come on. We’re almost there. Just be careful. Come on.” And he leads them into the city.

And then Elisha prays, and God opens their eyes. And guess what? They see the man they seek. Elisha, the man of God, stands unarmed in front of them, and the entire army of Israel behind him. Now the Syrians are surrounded by their enemy, and they are staring death in the face. The king of Israel sees the situation, wants to seize upon it, and is calling for blood: “Shall I strike them down? Shall I strike them down?” The dude is eager — he asks twice. And Elisha says, “No, no — don’t strike them down. Feed them.” Proverbs 25:21: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.”

And so the king of Israel, at the word of the prophet, throws a feast for the army of his enemy. Because which shows the greater power: to slaughter a captive army, or to feed them and send them home empty-handed? I can’t think of a better way to aggravate an already frustrated enemy than by sending his special forces operators back home unsuccessful, empty-handed, and well fed.

A couple of days ago, Sarah and I were reading through the Gospel of John together, and we came across that passage where the Pharisees send officers to go arrest the Lord Jesus, and then the officers come back empty-handed, saying, “No one ever spoke like this man!” One thinks of the apostle Paul, arrested by the Romans and stuck in a Roman prison. They arrested him for preaching the gospel, and guess what he does in the prison? He preaches the gospel. And the jailer becomes a Christian, and he tells his friends, who tell their friends, and Caesar’s own household starts becoming Christians. It has to be so frustrating to be an enemy of Almighty God in the advance of His gospel.

This, by the way, is the second message the prophet Elisha has sent to this Syrian king, this pagan king. The first one, we looked at last week: his own general, healed of leprosy, sent back as a follower of Yahweh. And here he sends his own army home, fat and sassy, picking food from their teeth. The message is clear: there is no God but Yahweh. And does the king of Syria hear the message and heed the message? Well, let’s have a look at the next two segments.

Verse 24. 2 Kings 6:24.

Afterward Ben-hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria.

Now, I just want to pause here for a second. I hate slowing us down — I know we have a lot to cover — but I need to slow down so you have time to brace yourself for what you’re about to read. The king of Syria is embarrassed, and so he musters his army to besiege Samaria. And siege warfare creates horrors unlike anything anyone in this room has ever seen.

Here’s how it works. You’re going against a fortified city, and you want to destroy it. You want to get in. You could send a bunch of soldiers against the wall, against the gates — and you would lose men in doing this, because the defenders are just going to stand on the wall, shoot, pour stuff on you, and whatnot. Or you could send a well-supplied army, surround the city, and cut off all entrances and exits. And then you wait, because if they can’t bring people in or send people out, they can’t replenish their food stores. And eventually they run out of food, and eventually their people starve, and hungry people resort to horrible things. It’s psychological warfare, and that happens here, and it is gruesome. Brace yourself. Verse 25.

And there was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver. Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” And he said, “If the Lord will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?”

The man is of no help whatsoever, saying, “There’s nothing in the threshing floor. There’s nothing in the winepress. What do you want me to do?” Verse 28.

And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him,’ but she has hidden her son.” When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body—and he said, “May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today.”

Here the king of Israel shows his true colors. A woman in his kingdom comes to him for help, and he effectively mocks her: If your God can’t help you, then how can I help you? And he blames Elisha and vows to kill him. You see how different he is from everyone else so far in this story? The man with the axe said, “Alas, my master.” The servant said, “Alas, my master.” The king should have come and said, “Alas — pray for me, Elisha. Pray for us. Pray that God would deliver us.” But instead, he blames Elisha.

But this is what the Lord Jesus promised, wasn’t it? That if they persecuted Him, they would persecute His followers. Unbelievers will be unbelievers, after all. The Jews blamed Paul for starting riots. The Romans blamed Christians for the sacking of Rome. It’s been like this forever: unbelievers are going to blame Christians for the problems in their lives. It’s just how it is. And the king of Israel is no different. The king of Israel here actually finds himself in a very strange position, where the very army that’s against him, he’s now on their side. They’re both trying to kill the man of God.

Let’s pick up reading, verse 32.

Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Now the king had dispatched a man from his presence, but before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Do you see how this murderer has sent to take off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door fast against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” And while he was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him and said, “This trouble is from the Lord! Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”

But Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord: thus says the Lord, Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.” Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, “If the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” But he said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”

In other words, all of the economic problems — because they had no food — will be completely reversed in a matter of one day, so that it won’t cost hardly anything for a ton of food. Apparently, the king of Israel had forgotten what happened when his own dad sent assassins after Elijah. Do you remember, a few weeks ago, when Pastor Matt preached that passage? He kept on sending these waves of special forces guys up to take Elijah by force, and what kept happening? God kept striking them down. Well, he’s not learned anything. So he’s sending a messenger — he’s sending an assassin to go kill Elisha, and he’s going to follow this assassin and get there whenever the job is done.

Elisha is sitting in his house with the elders of the city, and in the Spirit he knows this assassin is coming, and he’s unbothered, again, because he knows who provides for him. He knows who’s protecting him. And he tells them that by this time tomorrow everything in this city will be reversed, and the transformation will be dramatic. Today you spend 80 shekels of silver to eat the head of a donkey. Tomorrow one single shekel will buy you eight pounds of flour. Today it costs five shekels for a teaspoon of dove poo, and tomorrow you’ll buy sixteen pounds of barley for one shekel.

And the king’s staff is incredulous. The captain says, “If the Lord Himself should make windows in heaven — ain’t no way.” And Elisha says, “Well, you’ll see it, but you won’t taste it.” The captain has no faith in Yahweh. But Elisha knows that God can change the circumstances of an entire nation before breakfast.

Now the narrative shifts from the house of the prophet, sitting with the elders, to the gate of the city, and four lepers who are talking about death. Chapter 7, verse 3.

Now there were four men who were lepers at the entrance to the gate. And they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall but die.”

I mean, it’s understandable logic, really. They’re lepers; they’re going to die anyway. If they sit there, they’re going to die. If they go into the city, there’s no food in there — they’ll starve. If they go out to the Syrians, who are the enemies, they might kill them, but they’re going to die anyway. No food in the city; food in the Syrian camp. Let’s just roll the dice. What if they have mercy on us? Which is what they do. Verse 5.

So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there. For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us.” So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives.

And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them.

The Lord made the Syrian army hear the sound of an approaching army, and it filled them with fear, and they bugged out. That’s all it took. And the lepers find the Syrian camp empty of all the bad guys and filled with all the bad guys’ stuff. They can’t believe their luck. They throw themselves a feast and plunder the enemy, and suddenly these four lepers are the richest people in all the land. Yahweh delivered His people without them ever even having to raise a fist. And no one knows it but four lepers, fat and sassy, hiding in a tent. And probably Elisha — he probably knows, too. Let’s keep reading. Verse 9.

Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let us go and tell the king’s household.” So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.” Then the gatekeepers called out, and it was told within the king’s household.

And the king rose in the night and said to his servants, “I will tell you what the Syrians have prepared against us. They know that we are hungry. Therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.'” And one of his servants said, “Let some men take five of the remaining horses, seeing that those who are left in the city will fare like the whole multitude of Israel who have already perished. Let us send and see.” So they took two horsemen, and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying, “Go and see.” So they went after them as far as the Jordan, and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipment that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. And the messengers returned and told the king.

Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord. Now the king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate, and the people trampled him in the gate, so that he died, as the man of God had said when the king came down to him.

The lepers knew that what they were doing wasn’t right. They were engorging themselves on the spoils of God’s victory while God’s own people starved in the city. And they said, “This is a day of good news.” Well, Christian, you ought to recognize that phrase, shouldn’t you? Good news. The gospel is good news. The word gospel means good news that makes a change in the life of the person who hears it. The lepers have good news to preach. And these men — outcasts from their own society — might have allowed their sorrow and grief for their own circumstance to create bitterness in them. They might have just taken what they could from the Syrian army, stuffed it away, gone to a foreign land, and lived happily ever after until their leprosy took their lives. No one would have known. But they recognize: it’s not a good thing that we do, sitting here enjoying the spoils of this good news that God has done, without sharing it with others. One thinks of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9: “Necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”

So they go to the gate. They tell the gate people. The gate people tell the king. And the king is apprehensive — and that makes sense to me. What if it is a trap to lure the people out of the city so that then they can attack and get inside? So he sends out scouts, and they report back: it’s true.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it so far — I’ve tried to emphasize it the way I’ve read it — but there’s this see, go and see, come and see, go and tell all throughout this passage. Once again, those who are blind see. Verse 13: “Let us send and see.” And the king sends. Verse 14: “Go and see.” And they come back and report the truth, and God’s people are saved.

Well, not all of God’s people. Remember the captain? The captain who was with Elisha when they were trying to kill him, and Elisha said, “Everything’s going to change overnight,” and he’s like, “Ain’t no way God could make windows in heaven. It’s not happening.” And Elisha said, “You’ll see it, but you won’t taste it.” Well, the same thing happened, just as Elisha had said. The king appoints the captain to stand watch at the gate of the city, but these starving people are just rushing to get food for themselves and for their kids, and they trample the man to death, and he dies. He saw the victory, but he did not taste it. This captain in this story becomes a warning. His unbelief becomes disastrous.

My non-Christian guest, listen to the message the Lord is saying to you this morning through the example of this captain. You have heard the good news of Jesus Christ today. An enemy has besieged your life, and you, like the people of Israel, are starving spiritually. Your disobedience to God’s commandments has wreaked havoc on your life, and without someone to deliver you, you will be under the judgment of God for your sins forever. But God the Son, Jesus Christ, took on flesh, and He took the penalty of sin. He died and rose victorious over sin. He defeated the enemy. And the gates of the city are now wide open, and all who turn to Him in faith are forgiven of their sins and reconciled to their Savior. Friend, see the victory and the glory of this God, and rush out of the prison of your unbelief and feast upon the grace of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Repent and believe today. Talk with someone after the service — we’ll tell you more about the love of God who would save sinners such as yourself.

God is provider. God is protector. And that brings us to the last two segments, where we’ll close our time together.

Another small need, and another big problem — and the same God who meets them both. Let’s pick up reading in chapter 8, verse 1.

Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Arise, and depart with your household, and sojourn wherever you can, for the Lord has called for a famine, and it will come upon the land for seven years.” So the woman arose and did according to the word of the man of God. She went with her household and sojourned in the land of the Philistines seven years. And at the end of the seven years, when the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, she went to appeal to the king for her house and her land.

Now the king was talking with Gehazi the servant of the man of God, saying, “Tell me all the great things that Elisha has done.” And while he was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life appealed to the king for her house and her land. And Gehazi said, “My lord, O king, here is the woman, and here is her son whom Elisha restored to life.” And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed an official for her, saying, “Restore all that was hers, together with all the produce of the fields from the day that she left the land until now.”

We’ve met this woman before. A couple of weeks ago, she showed hospitality to Elisha; God blessed her with a son who died, and Elisha raised him from the dead. In the meantime, she and Elisha have kept up correspondence, and Elisha tells her that the Lord is bringing judgment upon Israel for their sins of idolatry, and a famine is coming — but the Lord would spare her. So if she sojourns in another land, then when the famine is over, she can come back. She obeys the word of the prophet. After seven years, the Lord lifts the famine, and she returns. And in her absence, her land and her house have been taken over by others. Her husband must have died at some point, which only complicated the task of getting her things back.

So she goes to the king — and it just so happens that on the very day she returns to appeal to the king, the servant of Elisha, Gehazi, is in the presence of the king, having a conversation, and her name came up. And Gehazi looks up and sees, There she is — this is the very woman I’ve just been telling you about. God’s timing is perfect. The king hears her request and restores everything. It’s a small need, and God provides. Once again: small need — God provides.

And now we get to the last segment of our section: a big need. Chapter 8, verse 7.

Now Elisha came to Damascus. Ben-hadad the king of Syria was sick. And when it was told him, “The man of God has come here,” the king said to Hazael, “Take a present with you and go to meet the man of God, and inquire of the Lord through him, saying, ‘Shall I recover from this sickness?'” So Hazael went to meet him, taking a present with him, all kinds of goods of Damascus, forty camel loads. When he came and stood before him, he said, “Your son Ben-hadad king of Syria has sent me to you, saying, ‘Shall I recover from this sickness?'” And Elisha said to him, “Go, say to him, ‘You shall certainly recover’; but the Lord has shown me that he shall certainly die.”

And he fixed his gaze and stared at him, until he was ashamed. And the man of God wept. And Hazael said, “Why does my lord weep?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel. You will set on fire their fortresses, and you will kill their young men with the sword and dash in pieces their little ones and rip open their pregnant women.” And Hazael said, “What is your servant, who is but a dog, that he should do this great thing?” Elisha answered, “The Lord has shown me that you are to be king over Syria.” Then he departed from Elisha and came to his master, who said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?” And he answered, “He told me that you would certainly recover.” But the next day he took the bed cloth and dipped it in water and spread it over his face, till he died. And Hazael became king in his place.

So we’re back with the king of Syria — same guy, and he’s sick. Elisha is on his way to Damascus, the capital of Syria, to make a hospital visit. And the king sends his servant Hazael to ask the Lord, “Am I going to recover?” And they have this strange interaction. In verse 11, the prophet stares at Hazael for so long that Hazael becomes uncomfortable. And then the prophet just starts crying. And you have to think, what in the world is Hazael thinking? This poor guy needs a vacation or something. Maybe he’s the sick one.

But the reason is that Elisha sees what Hazael will do. He says, “I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel.” And Hazael is confused by this, because he’s just a servant — how in the world is he going to do these things? He’s no king. He’s just a servant. And then Elisha tells him, “You’re going to be king.” Hazael goes back to his king, and the king is obviously interested in the answer: Am I going to recover? And Hazael says, “Yahweh said you’re going to recover.” And then the next day, he takes out a wet towel and smothers the king to death. And Hazael becomes king in Syria.

Our passage today ends with a succession of kings in Judah and in Israel that, Lord willing, we’ll consider next week.

This passage — with all these six segments and the strange things that take place in this section — is a helpful reminder that God is our protector, and God is our provider. We just sang it: Behold your God, seated on the throne. And in moments of real need, be they big or small, Christian, turn to the Lord and say to your Savior, “Alas, my master!” Because many are your foes. Many are those who rise up against you. Many are those who say, “Where is your God?” But You, O Lord, are a shield for me — the prophet says — the glory and the lifter of my head.

In your fear, in your anxiety, in uncertainty, in affliction, Christian, remember: greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. So whatever your need is, big or small — as in the case of Peter, taxes for the temple tax, or getting sprung out of jail; whatever the need, maybe it’s medical bills, maybe it’s deliverance from an addiction, maybe it’s infertility, maybe it’s taking the gospel to the unreached — know this: your God is more able and far more willing to meet your every need than you could possibly imagine. And you are safer and better supplied than you could possibly imagine. So you can walk tall, dear Christian. You can let your confidence in the Lord soar above your every circumstance, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. May the Lord give us all eyes to see that this is true.

Let’s pray. O Lord, please receive our praise and thanks for Your kindness, and reveal to us this reality: You are our protector and provider. In Jesus’s name. Amen.

We find ourselves working through the book of Kings. We are in 2 Kings chapter 5. If you’re sort of new to the Bible, the passage we’ll be considering today you’ll find on pages 311 and 312 of the church Bibles. Chapter numbers are the big numbers; verse numbers are the little numbers.

Now, before we jump in this morning, I have to get something off my chest. You already know that in the book of Kings, we have come across what is called a digraph — we don’t have this in English — where two vowels are stuck right next to each other. We’ve seen this in the case of the god Baal, B-A-A-L. We don’t do this in English. And we find the central figure in our story today, 2 Kings 5, having that same kind of thing in his name. So all week long I’ve been studying this passage and hearing it in my head as “Nah-ah-man.” That’s how his name is pronounced, and I was intending to read it saying “Nah-ah-man.” Then I realized I’m in Piqua, and nobody in this room has ever heard the man called “Nah-ah-man.” And to prevent you from thinking too highly of me, we’re just going to call him “Nay-man.” Nay-man, okay? And then later we’ll ‘warsh’ the dishes and clean the ‘terlits’. You hillbillies.

All right. 2 Kings chapter 5. Here’s the big idea this morning: the grace of God is a free gift for all who humble themselves before Him. That’s where we’re headed. Let’s pray.

He who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. Our Lord, we ask that You would grant to us, by the power of Your Spirit, the gift of humility — that we would be teachable; that as we read in this text and see our own sin, we would have humility to acknowledge it and to lay it before You and to receive the free gift of Your grace and mercy. Amen.

Once upon a time, the Lord Jesus Christ visited His hometown and was driven out of it by men who hated Him. They took Him by force to the edge of a cliff and intended to throw Him off the cliff and kill Him. And the reason they hated Him and wanted Him to die is because of the Lord Jesus’s mention of the central figure in our passage today. Jesus said this: “And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” And they were triggered, and they became violent. Because Jesus was saying to them, as one commentator would put it, “Naaman the Syrian could teach you people a thing or two about the ways of God” — and that they could not accept. A Gentile teaching us about our God? It exposed their pride.

Augustine, one of the church fathers, believed that pride was the origin of evil, and I think he might be right about that. Pride is something every man hates when he sees it in someone else, and unless he’s a Christian, he hardly ever thinks he is guilty of it himself. Ironically, the more prideful we are, the less tolerant of pride we are when we see it in others. And pride is so contrary to God that you will have no part of Him while you hold on to it.

God knows this. And so, in His great love for His people, desiring for them to know Him and to experience true delight and true joy, God destroyed the power of pride by humbling Himself. By becoming man. God the Son took the form of a servant and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, to cure the disease of pride and reconcile sinners to God. But in order for us sinners to be reconciled to our God, we must let go of pride. We must humble ourselves, recognizing that we don’t know as much as we think we know, that we’re not as well off as we think we are. We must depend on God for grace, and consider others more significant than ourselves.

The book of Kings was written to Jews in exile in Babylon, under the judgment of God for, in part, their pride. The author of Kings is writing to explain why they are there. And he might just as easily have written to them and said, “If you humble yourself before God, He will forgive you of your sins and reconcile you to Himself.” But instead, he tells the story of Naaman. Stories are great teachers. You see, pride is like a splinter: if you just go right at it, you’re only going to drive it deeper. But a story has the power to draw it out while your attention is on something else. It sneaks the antidote in.

Four points will guide us through this chapter.

The first is this: human power cannot solve our greatest need. 2 Kings chapter 5, verse 1. This is the word of the Lord.

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” So Naaman went in and told his lord, “Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel.” And the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.”

So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Only consider, and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me.”

Our greatest power cannot solve our greatest need. We’re introduced to Naaman in the most illustrious terms imaginable. He is the commander of the Syrian army. He is a great man. He is in high favor. He is victorious. He is a mighty man of valor. Even his name means “pleasant.” And yet verse 1 tells us: he is a leper.

The leprosy mentioned here is not like modern leprosy. This is a little bit different — we’re not exactly sure what it is — but it’s an incurable skin disease that leaves the sufferer ugly and disfigured and religiously unclean.

Before we get too far along in our text this morning, I’d like us to consider briefly a phrase in verse 1: “by him” — by Naaman — “the Lord had given victory to Syria.” God gave victory to the pagan nation of Syria, the enemy of Israel. This is the witness across Scripture that God is sovereign over kings and nations. And that matters to this story, because it means Naaman’s greatness, Naaman’s success, came from the Lord. It was derivative. There is no such thing as a self-made man. Vince Lombardi once said that the price of success is hard work and dedication. Sure — and God supplies the currency. We are creatures, one and all. We are more dependent upon the grace and kindness of God than most of us are comfortable admitting.

For all of his greatness, for all of his success, this man could not cure his greatest need. He has a lot of money, but it could not cure his leprosy. And the way the story is told highlights this irony: a powerful general suffers an ugly disease and is saved through the witness, as Pastor Matt said, of a little girl. She’s a young Israelite stolen from her home during a Syrian raid and forced to serve as a slave to Naaman’s wife. She’s unnamed, never mentioned in Scripture again. And yet, in some ways, she is the hero of this story. Rather than allowing hatred and bitterness toward her master to grow up in her heart, she trusts in her God, and she shows compassion to her enemy. She points Naaman to the man of God in Israel.

How many of us would have responded so humbly, were we in her situation? This man stole her from her home, from her family. He ruined her life. Leprosy is the least of what he deserves. How many of us would have thought, “Well, this is just a judgment of God upon a wicked pagan”? But not her. She tells her mistress — literally, the text reads — “Oh, how I wish my master were with the man of God in Samaria. He would cure him.” What did Jesus say? “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Naaman takes the counsel of this little girl, and he gets permission from his king, Ben-hadad — we’ve seen him before in the book of Kings. And Ben-hadad writes a letter to the king of Israel, Jehoram — we’ve met him in the book of Kings before. You wonder, why would he send a letter to the king and not a letter to Elisha? Well, because this is how things are done in the ancient Near East. Prophets, magicians — they are servants of the king. You petition the king. Plus, Ben-hadad probably had a little bit more written into this letter than just “heal my servant.” There’s probably a veiled threat here: Heal my boy, or else.

So Naaman readies himself with chariots and horses and servants and 750 pounds of silver and 150 pounds of gold and ten changes of clothes. We’re talking millions of dollars’ worth of silver and gold traveling alongside this man, because he’s going to make sure the king in Israel knows how important he is. So he turns up in Samaria with his entourage and his payment in tow. And you can imagine King Jehoram is on edge. The commander of the army of your enemy is at your doorstep, and he wants you to do something for him that you can’t do. Ben-hadad demands that his servant be healed. And so Jehoram freaks out, tears his clothes, and says, “Am I God, to kill, to heal?” No thought of Elisha. No mention of prayer to the God who does kill and heal. No concern for the suffering man in front of him. Just totally focused on himself.

We tend to think that pride looks like the haughty man looking down his nose at others. And that is a form of pride — but pride comes in many shades. Sometimes the color it takes is clothes-tearing emotional breakdowns. Sometimes pride mopes with drooped shoulders and chin tucked, posturing yourself, hoping that someone will notice and ask. A truly humble man is not the gloomy fellow always talking about how unworthy he is. A truly humble man is cheerful and easily pleased — the kind of guy who takes a real interest in others and hardly talks about himself at all.

Elisha catches wind of Naaman’s visit and sends word: Send him to me. And this brings us to our second point.

Humble faith receives God’s gracious aid. Verse 8.

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.”

But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage.

But his servants came near and said to him, “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

Picture this scene. A Syrian general rolls up with his entourage, with his chariots and his horses, with his wagons full of gold — looks like a Saudi prince — and they roll out the red carpet all the way to Elisha’s door. And the prophet sends a messenger, and stays in the house. It’s the ancient equivalent of sending a text message: Go take a bath in the Jordan seven times and call me in the morning.

Now, I don’t think I need to explain Naaman’s anger to you, do I? Army commanders are not used to this kind of treatment. We come all this way, and Elisha brushes him aside. Can you imagine what this must have looked like to Naaman’s people? This feels like a diss. The Syrian general is fuming. First of all, prophet, you have the gall to tell me to come to you? You think the prime minister of England goes to the doctor? No — the doctor comes to him. I’ll let that one slide, Elisha. And second, you send me away with a text message? “Wash in the Jordan”? That mucky swamp? We’ve got better rivers back home. No, no, prophet. Here’s what you’re going to do: you’re going to come out of your little house, and you’re going to wave your grubby hands over me, and you’re going to pray to your God. You’re going to take my gift, and you’re going to go home.

And once again, wisdom comes from the weak and the powerless. Once again, the Lord chooses the weak things of this world to confound the wise. The ESV’s translation of verse 13 can be a bit confusing; I think the CSB translation is a little clearer. The servant says, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? Well, how much more should you do it when he only tells you to wash and be clean?”

But Naaman’s pride is wounded. The Lord is kind; He softens Naaman’s heart to receive the healing. He must humble himself. Do you see what Elisha’s doing? Leprosy was not Naaman’s greatest problem. Pride was Naaman’s greatest problem. Leprosy may have disfigured his skin, but pride had deformed his soul. And Elisha saw it. He saw the real problem. He could have coddled the commander, but that would not cure him. And so Elisha offers the cure: Humble yourself. Obey the word of God from the prophet of God, and you will be healed.

As Pastor Matt said, it is like that for us, too. There is nothing magical about the waters of baptism. I mean, Naaman’s right — he could just as easily have been clean back home. The blessing comes through faith: humbling oneself before God and obeying the commands of God. Before the Lord gave grace to Naaman, He softened his heart, and verse 14 says he goes down to the river — an intentional phrase, if there ever was one. The great general has to humble himself and lower himself and obey the word of God through a prophet, and do the thing that seems foolish and beneath him. But humility was the only path to healing. The only thing this wealthy man brings into the water is his disease and his faith. His money, his rank, his pride — he had to leave on the shore. And the Lord had mercy on his soul.

I don’t know if you caught it, but there’s a play on words in the original that is easy to see in the English. At the beginning of the chapter, it was a little girl who sent this great man to be healed. And then, once he’s humbled, once he’s healed, the great man becomes like a little child. One can’t help but think of the words of Jesus, who said, “Unless you become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

My non-Christian guest, I hope you’re hearing what your Creator is saying to you this very morning. Your objections to Christianity are not intellectual — they’re biographical. You don’t believe Christianity is true because you don’t want Christianity to be true. Your skepticism has very little to do, actually, with historicity and the reliability of the Bible. Your objection has to do with the authority of the Bible. Because if Jesus saves, then that means you need saving. If Jesus is the Savior, then that means you’re not. And like Naaman, you think your philosophical rivers are better. But friend, I want you to see: you are plagued with the very same disease as this man here. You’ve been infected with the disease of pride and self-conceit, and it is rotting you from the inside. Unless you humble yourself and turn to Jesus Christ today, you will spend eternity under the judgment of God in hell.

But Jesus Christ, God the Son, humbled Himself. He became man. He lived without sin. He was charged with sin to save sinners from sin. He died and was buried and rose again, bringing life to all who turn to Him in faith. The reality is that anyone who humbles themselves and turns to Him for mercy receives forgiveness of their sins and eternal life. Why not, friend, do that today? Do not delay. Do not leave this place still in your sins. When you turn to the Lord and God shows mercy to you, your whole life will be transformed. Your pride will dissolve into gratitude, freedom, peace, and great joy. That’s what we see in this person Naaman. This brings us to our third point.

God’s grace produces grateful worship. Verse 15.

Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel; so accept now a present from your servant.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand, I will receive none.” And he urged him to take it, but he refused. Then Naaman said, “If not, please let there be given to your servant two mule loads of earth, for from now on your servant will not offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god but the Lord. In this matter may the Lord pardon your servant: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my arm, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon your servant in this matter.” He said to him, “Go in peace.”

A Gentile, a Syrian, a commander of the army of the enemies of the people of God, makes the great confession: “There is no God in all the earth but Yahweh, and Him alone will I serve.” He returns to Elisha, and now he offers him a gift. Before Naaman was humbled, before he was healed, his money was a tool for bartering — he was going to pay for this healing. After the man is humbled, after he is healed, it’s an act of worship, and he offers Elisha a gift.

Now, money from Naaman is life-changing money. Can you imagine what good could be done in the kingdom of God had Elisha had nearly unlimited funds? But Elisha refuses. And despite the general urging him to take it, the prophet refuses. Can you imagine the damage that would be done had he accepted money for grace? The grace of God is a gift. You cannot buy God’s favor with money, rank, or good works. It’s unmerited. At the beginning, the freeness of God’s grace was offensive to Naaman. This is a man who’s used to taking care of his problems himself. But grace, by its very definition, cannot be earned. God’s grace is free, so that God alone would receive the credit and the glory — and God won’t share one ounce of His glory with anyone.

Free grace is what makes Christianity different from all the other religions of the world. And it is the most difficult thing for us to accept and believe. It cuts against all of our impulses. We simply breathe the air called karma: what goes around comes around; you do good, good will be done to you. It’s the law written on our hearts.

The law says, “Sow, and you will reap.” The gospel says, “You reap what you could never sow.”

The law says, “You’ll be accepted if you keep the law.” The gospel says, “You’re accepted because Christ kept the law.”

The law says, “You suffer the consequences of your sin.” The gospel says, “Christ suffered the consequences of your sin.”

The law says, “Work hard. Hide your failures. You’ll be loved.” The gospel says, “Rest in Christ. Be honest about your failures. You are loved.”

The law says, “Your past determines your future.” The gospel says, “God’s grace rewrites your future.”

The law is based on you and your ability; therefore, your future is never certain. The gospel is based on Christ and the cross, and therefore your future is secure.

Under the law, obedience is an act of negotiation. Under the gospel, obedience is an act of love.

The law produces prideful, anxious, miserly people. But the gospel produces humble, peaceful, happy people.

The effect of God’s grace in Naaman’s life is unmistakable. He immediately recognizes he must change. Just consider the change in how he views himself. Look at verse 17. He asks Elisha, “Let there be given to your —” what does your Bible say? — “servant.” A different man climbed out of the waters of the Jordan than the one who went into it. Naaman knows intuitively that his life must change. His worship must change. It’s a strange request, perhaps, but he asks for two mule loads of Israelite dirt. He knows that Yahweh is the one true God, and so he asks for soil from the land of Yahweh, so that when he returns to Syria, he may build an altar and worship Him there.

He also recognizes that his relationship to his king and to his job must change. His duty to the king of Syria involved standing next to the king of Syria during certain religious ceremonies to the false god Rimmon. Naaman commits himself that he’s not going to participate in false worship, but his conscience is sensitive, and so he asks God to pardon him in his association with the worship of Rimmon while he’s doing his job. And so Elisha says to this new believer, “Go in peace” — you live in the world, not of the world.

As much as we would like to know how Naaman got on — the years that transpired, life in Syria as a follower of Yahweh — that is not the point of Kings. This book was written for exiled Jews in Babylon, and they’re being shown, through Naaman’s example, that anyone — even Syrians, even pagans — who humbles themselves before the Lord will receive the free grace of God and forgiveness of their sins.

Seeing God’s free grace that He gives to a Gentile, to a Syrian, to the commander of the army of the enemy, exposes pride in the heart of Elisha’s servant Gehazi. This brings us to the last point, where we’ll close.

Let’s pick up reading in the second half of verse 19.

But when Naaman had gone from him a short distance, Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, “See, my master has spared this Naaman the Syrian, in not accepting from his hand what he brought. As the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.” So Gehazi followed Naaman. And when Naaman saw someone running after him, he got down from the chariot to meet him and said, “Is all well?” And he said, “All is well. My master has sent me to say, ‘There have just now come to me from the hill country of Ephraim two young men of the sons of the prophets. Please give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothing.'” And Naaman said, “Be pleased to accept two talents.” And he urged him and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of clothing, and laid them on two of his servants, and they carried them before Gehazi. And when he came to the hill, he took them from their hand and put them in the house, and he sent the men away, and they departed.

He went in and stood before his master, and Elisha said to him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?” And he said, “Your servant went nowhere.” But he said to him, “Did not my heart go when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Was it a time to accept money and garments, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, male servants and female servants? Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever.” So he went out from his presence a leper, like snow.

The Lord Jesus once told a story of two sons. The younger son took his father’s inheritance and squandered it with loose living. Once he came to his senses, he returned home, and his father showed him grace and forgave all that he did. The older son, however, despised his father and his father’s free grace. The very same thing is happening here. Gehazi ought to have rejoiced to see God’s grace given to sinners. He ought to have praised his Lord for His mercy. But instead, the witness of God’s grace to a filthy Gentile drew out the splinter of his pride. It drew out covetousness in this man.

You can sense how Gehazi despises Naaman in verse 20: “My master has spared this Naaman, the Syrian.” It’s not only Naaman he despises — he despises Elisha. My master spared him. He needs to pay for this. He’s just like the older brother: “This son of yours.”

It’s not so easy to see in English, but the author is doing something with the Hebrew word take. This whole chapter — up in verse 5, Naaman takes a bunch of money to get his healing; the Lord gives it to him for free. After his healing, verse 15, Naaman urges the prophet, “Take a gift,” and Elisha says, “I will not take it.” And then in verse 20, Gehazi says, “If my master won’t take it, I’ll take it.” In verse 22, he tells him, “Give me” — it’s the same word — “give me two talents of silver.” And Naaman says, “Take it.” And Gehazi takes it, verse 24. And then Elisha, in confronting his servant, says, “Now is not the time to take.” Take, take, take, take.

The pride in Gehazi’s heart hatches a plan to extract payment out of this Syrian. He lies. He puts words in the prophet’s mouth: If my master won’t take money, I will. I mean, Naaman doesn’t even need money — he’s got plenty of it. He won’t even miss it. And it’s God’s free grace to sinners that exposes the pride of Gehazi’s heart. Pride hates grace. Pride hates God for giving grace. And Gehazi determines he’s going to get — he’s going to take — what he deserves. Through this whole passage, God is give, give, give, give. And this just rubs the legalist wrong.

Elisha’s heart is grieved. “Where have you been, Gehazi?” And sin breeds more sin: Gehazi lies. “I’ve been nowhere.” But Elisha tells him, “It’s not the time to take. It’s the time to give.” Almost like the prodigal’s father saying to the older son, “You were always with me. All that I have is yours. Celebrate. Be glad. Be happy for your brother.” Gehazi, be happy for Naaman. But he cannot. His pride keeps him from it.

The contrast between these two is acute. Naaman, a great man whose problem is solved through the counsel of a little girl; to receive his healing, he has to become like her — a little child — humble. Gehazi, servant of the prophet of the Lord, accustomed to the ways of God, refuses to humble himself and rejoice in God’s free grace to sinners. One man leaves the prophet’s presence clean of his leprosy, and the other leaves the presence of the prophet covered in leprosy.

PBC, this is the word of the Lord to you this morning. Are you like Naaman — seeking to commend yourself to God by your good works and your good intentions? Do you need to be humbled? Or are you like Gehazi — despising God’s grace to sinners, whose troubles are self-inflicted, seeking to get something for yourself because God hasn’t given you enough? You don’t know my problems. You don’t know how I suffer. I don’t care what you say — I’m going to get it myself. I’ll break every one of your rules to get what is mine.

I suspect there’s a little bit of both in all of us. And so the prescription is the same for all of us: to follow Naaman down the banks of the Jordan River, and there see our Lord Jesus Christ, humbled as a man, baptized in these very waters — not to make Himself clean, but to make you clean. And let us receive from Him the free offer of God’s grace. And let us rest in the finished work of His cross. And let us extend grace to all who need it. And let us seek, by God’s great help, to follow Him in all that He commands — trusting God will provide. God is good, and obedience to His commandments is a blessing. May the Lord make it so.

Let’s pray. Father, thank You for humbling us. And let the humility wrought in us by Your Holy Spirit produce in us good works, deeper and greater love for Jesus, and appreciation for His work, His cross, His patience. Let us see ourselves in light of Your holiness — never considering ourselves above Your commandments, never considering ourselves greater than another, but humble as Naaman was, so that we would be clean. In Jesus’s name. Amen.

As parents are making their way back from checking their kids in, if you want to find your way to a seat and take out your copy of God’s Word. Here at Piqua Baptist, we work our way through books of the Bible a little bit at a time, and we’re currently in the middle of a series through the book of Kings. We are in the second part — 2 Kings chapters 3 and 4 this morning. If you don’t have a Bible, there is a black one under a chair nearby, and you’ll find 2 Kings chapters 3 and 4 on pages 308, 309, and 310.

Let me go ahead and pray.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall Your word go forth, and it will not return void or empty, but it will accomplish that which You purpose; it will succeed in that for which You sent it. And so, Lord, we ask now, humbly, that as You send forth Your word in the next few moments, it would find good soil in all of our hearts, and it would take root, and it would bear fruit, that Christ would be exalted. Without Him we can do nothing. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Amen.

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

You see, when everything is said and done, what will they say of you? Will it be said that you cried unto the Lord, and the Lord heard your voice? Will it be said that you cast your burden upon the Lord, and He sustained you? Can I ask: when you are weary and in need of rest, when you are anxious and in need of peace, when you are afraid and in need of comfort, when a sense of injustice wells up in your chest — where do you turn? To the Lord? Or is the Lord more like the airbags in your car — something you think rarely about until there’s an accident?

Here’s the central claim I’ll be making this morning from 2 Kings 3 and 4 — and I’ll slightly adjust what shows up on the screen here: when death surrounds, turn first and fast to the man of God, whose word and work will bring you life.When death surrounds, turn first and fast to the man of God whose word and work will bring you life.

2 Kings chapters 3 and 4 — we take up where Pastor Matt left off last Lord’s Day. And I think I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you to join me in giving thanks to our God for blessing our church with such a good biblical expositor of God’s Word, a good Bible teacher, and an irrepressibly encouraging pastor. The man is my favorite preacher and my dearest friend, and I’m thankful that I get to serve alongside him every Sunday.

In two chapters, we are given five examples of the onslaught of death that is brought about by sin in this world. We are introduced to five different responses to that onslaught of death. One example is a negative one, which we’ll consider first. The other four are positive ones. Three headings will guide our time together:

You can see the outline on the screen. Let’s get to work.

Chapter 3. This is the word of the Lord.

In the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Ahab became king over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned twelve years. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, though not like his father and mother, for he put away the pillar of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless, he clung to the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin; he did not depart from it.

Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder, and he had to deliver to the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. But when Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. So King Jehoram marched out of Samaria at that time and mustered all Israel. And he went and sent word to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to battle against Moab?” And he said, “I will go. I am as you are; my people as your people, my horses as your horses.” Then he said, “By which way shall we march?” Jehoram answered, “By the way of the wilderness of Edom.”

So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom. And when they had made a circuitous march of seven days, there was no water for the army or for the animals that followed them. Then the king of Israel said, “Alas! The Lord has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab.” And Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here, through whom we may inquire of the Lord?” Then one of the servants of the king of Israel answered, “Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah.” And Jehoshaphat said, “The word of the Lord is with him.” So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.

Let me give you some background. The kingdom of Israel has been split into two kingdoms — one kingdom in the north, with their own king, called Israel, and one kingdom in the south, with their own king, called Judah. Israel in the north has been plagued by wicked kings, and Ahab was about as wicked as you get. He and his wife worshiped a false god called Baal, and they led the people of Israel to do the same. God mercifully warned Ahab of his sin, which he rejected, and he fell under God’s just judgment. And now he and his wife are dead.

Upon the death of Ahab, his son takes over. Pastor Matt read the passage last week. He continued in his father’s idolatry, and he fell through the lattice in his upper chamber, and he died. So his brother takes over in Israel — a fellow named Jehoram. Although we read that Jehoram didn’t continue in the worship of Baal, he did continue in false worship to other false gods, and he did lead God’s people away from the Lord.

Now, at the time, the kingdom of Moab was under Israelite dominion. So when the king of Moab hears that Ahab is dead, he decides, “I’m going to stop giving what is demanded of me” — which is a couple hundred thousand head of sheep. That would have been a serious blow to the treasury in Israel. And so Jehoram decides he will go to war against Moab. He calls King Jehoshaphat, his cousin to the south, and asks him, “Join me and get my sheep back.”

Jehoshaphat is a good king. Jehoshaphat is a godly king. Kind of dumb, but he’s good. Jehoshaphat is simply down for whatever. He tells Jehoram what he told his father: “I’m in. Whatever is mine is yours. I’ll go with you.” He commits himself, he commits his army, he commits to whatever the king of Israel wants. He just jumps right in. That’s where we get the phrase “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat.” I made that up.

Jehoram comes up with a plan and decides he’s going to flank the Moabites. They’re going to take this long, circuitous route through Edom, and they’ll pick up the king of Edom, who is a vassal of Judah at the time, and they’ll go against the Moabites three against one. Guaranteed win. But Jehoram’s plan turns out to be a disaster. They go for seven days, and they run out of water. None of the animals, none of the army, has anything to drink — which is a really, really bad thing.

And Jehoram blames God. Notice he says, “Well, the Lord brought us together, and now He’s going to deliver us into the hand of the Moabites.” Because what army is going to rush into battle dehydrated? We’re all going to die, and it’s all God’s fault. But notice: this was Jehoram’s idea. He didn’t seek the Lord. He didn’t pray. And he finds himself in crisis and blames God.

Isn’t that just like us? We want what we want. We make decisions to get what we want without prayer, without searching out Scripture, without seeking counsel from an elder or pastor. We find ourselves in a bind, and we blame God for not being a good provider or a good protector. It seems there’s a little Jehoram in all of us.

Well — Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat. He’s going to have to jump in again. He does now what he did back with Ahab some years ago, and says, “Is there not a prophet of the Lord that we can go and ask what God would have us do?” It’s a little late to ask now, but it’s still a good question. And one of the king’s servants comes and says, “Well, there’s Elisha.” And Jehoshaphat is exactly right in verse 12 when he says, “The word of Yahweh is with him.”

And this is a major theme throughout the book of Kings: God will lead His people by His word, and His word will come through the man sent from God, the prophet of God. This is how God leads His people — by His word, through the man that He sent.

Let’s pick up reading at verse 13.

And Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and to the prophets of your mother.” But the king of Israel said to him, “No; it is the Lord who has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab.” And Elisha said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, were it not that I have regard for Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would neither look at you nor see you. But now bring me a musician.”

And when the musician played, the hand of the Lord came upon him. And he said, “Thus says the Lord, ‘I will make this dry streambed full of pools.’ For thus says the Lord, ‘You shall not see wind or see rain, but that streambed shall be filled with water, so that you shall drink, you, your livestock, and your animals.’ This is a light thing in the sight of the Lord. He will also give the Moabites into your hand, and you shall attack every fortified city and every choice city, and fell every good tree and stop up all springs of water and ruin every good piece of land with stones.”

The next morning, about the time of offering the sacrifice, behold, water came from the direction of Edom, and the country was filled with water.

Elisha is fearless before Jehoram, the son of Ahab. He’s like, “Why are you coming to me? Why don’t you go to the prophets of Baal? Oh, wait — did something happen to those guys?” He says, “I wouldn’t even look at you if it weren’t for Jehoshaphat. He’s a good king. He’s dumb, but he’s good.” And the king of Israel says, in effect, “No — it’s the Lord who called us together. It’s God’s fault.”

The Lord is gracious. He speaks a favorable word to these three kings. The water will come at the word of the prophet of the Lord. We’ve been here before, haven’t we? Yahweh will send water — a flash flood, probably, of some sort — and He promises that He will deliver the Moabites into their hands.

When you read the rest of the chapter, you see that the Moabites see the sun reflecting off the water, which looks to them like blood — maybe silt from the ground turned it red or something. They see red, and they think these three kings have probably turned on themselves and started killing one another. So they muster their army and rush in to plunder, only to find the three armies ready. It is a decisive victory that the Lord gives to Israel and Judah.

And when the king of Moab sees that things have turned all the way against him, he does what any wicked pagan would do: he takes his son and murders him on an altar to his demon god, hoping that his demon god will maybe wake up and help him win the battle — which, of course, he doesn’t, because demon gods don’t wake up, because they’re nothing. They don’t speak. They don’t help. They do nothing but steal, kill, and destroy. And the battle is over.

Israel and Judah were in a crisis. Going into battle dehydrated meant certain loss. They rushed into battle without seeking the Lord’s wisdom, without seeking the Lord’s guidance. They only turned to Him as a last resort. And this text is a bit of a mirror upon our own hearts, to show us that there’s a little Jehoram in all of us — that we want what we want, and we rush in to get it without turning to the Lord. A text like this warns us not to be like Jehoram.

But when the next crisis comes to your life, turn to the Lord first. Turn to the Lord fast. When you have big decisions to make in your life, turn to the Lord first. Turn to the Lord fast. When you’re uncertain of God’s direction for your life, the Lord has provided you pastors — men and women in the Lord who can pray with you, pastors who will lead you and guide you, help you see what God’s will is for your life. Turn to the Lord in the big things. Turn to the Lord in the small things.

Now the author continues along this theme of death invading, and people’s response to the encounter of death invading — with two positive examples of the right way to respond to the onslaught of death brought about by sin. These two examples did right. They trusted the Lord. And when we read this next section in chapter 4, we are not going to be scandalized by these two examples — but I assure you the original readers would have been. The two examples we’re about to read of godliness and faith are women.

Chapter 4, verse 1. When death invades, trust the Lord.

Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.” And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few. Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside.” So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured, they brought the vessels to her. When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing. She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”

It’s difficult to exaggerate the plight, the dire situation, of a widow in those days. Death broke into her life like a home invasion. Her husband was dead, and she was left with two young boys and a large debt. The creditor comes knocking, threatening to take her sons and make them slaves until the debt is paid. This is a very dire situation. What is she to do?

Well, the unnamed widow here does the right thing: she turned to Elisha, the man of God — first and fast. Elisha asked, “What do you have? What can be sold that you might pay off your debt?” And she responds, “I have practically nothing — a single jar of oil to my name.” And so the man of God tells her to gather up as many containers as she can borrow from her neighbors, fill her house, and begin to pour what she has into those containers until all of them are full.

Can you imagine what this might have sounded like to her? That’s your solution? To fill my house with empty jars? Isn’t that what my whole life is like? Isn’t it just a constant reminder of emptiness, of what I don’t have? But she has to trust the word of the Lord from the prophet of the Lord.

Now, back in 1 Kings 17 — if you’ve been with us in the series, you might remember — Yahweh provided for a different widow in a similar way during the ministry of Elijah. You remember? At the word of the prophet, the oil didn’t run out, and the widow was saved, her and her son. Now, I don’t know if this widow knew that story. I suspect she did. And she acts on faith at the word of the prophet. She expects that what God did in the past for others, He will do in the present for her.

Her house is full of empty jars — and these are probably large containers, big pots. And she’s going to empty her pot into this empty pot, which is a practice in futility: just taking one jar of oil and pouring it into another jar. And now you have the same amount of oil. I can imagine mom looking at her boys, maybe making a glance toward heaven and just saying, “Okay, Lord.” Can you imagine her face after she fills that first jar? “Boys, come here. Bring me another one. There’s more.” And then she pours into the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one. And now her house is full of full jars of oil. She’ll keep what she needs, and she’ll sell the rest to pay off her debt.

What a God we serve — that He would care for the lowest and the least, the father to the fatherless, the provider to the widow. This is our God. Turn to Him first and fast. Trust in His word. He keeps His promises. Whatever you need in your life, turn to your heavenly Father who hears you. And what God tells you to do with what little you do have, be obedient and do it. Do it. Act in faith. “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

The next example we see given to us in 2 Kings 4 is that of another woman — not a poor woman without a husband, but a wealthy woman without a son. Again we see the Lord’s kindness on display. Verse 8.

One day Elisha went on to Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to eat some food. So whenever he passed that way, he would turn in there to eat food. And she said to her husband, “Behold now, I know that this is a holy man of God who is continually passing our way. Let us make a small room on the roof with walls and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that whenever he comes to us, he can go in there.”

One day he came there, and he turned into the chamber and rested there. And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite.” When he had called her, she stood before him. And he said to him, “Say now to her, ‘See, you have taken all this trouble for us; what is to be done for you? Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?'” She answered, “I dwell among my own people.” And he said, “What then is to be done for her?” Gehazi answered, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.” He said, “Call her.” And when he had called her, she stood in the doorway. And he said, “At this season, about this time next year, you shall embrace a son.” And she said, “No, my lord, O man of God; do not lie to your servant.” But the woman conceived, and she bore a son about that time the following spring, as Elisha had said to her.

This woman, also unnamed, is a woman of means. She urges the prophet to come to her for hospitality. She feeds him, and then she recognizes that he’s a holy man, and she wants to honor him, and she asks her husband to build a room at their house for this prophet to come and rest. And the design of this room isn’t accidental. You may have wondered why all the details about this and that in the room — the details, the design, and the articles in that room are drawn exactly from the details, design, and articles in the Holy Place in the temple. She’s building a place for the man of God to commune with his God, to bring a revelation of who God is to the people of God. She’s using the funds God has provided to her to serve the kingdom and benefit others.

Elisha is thankful for this, and he asks how he might repay her kindness, but she’s too modest. She says, “I have all that I need. I live among my own people.” And so Elisha asks his servant, Gehazi, for suggestions, and Gehazi is the one who comes up with the idea: “Well, she doesn’t have a son. Her husband is old.” Now, Elisha must have known at that point what the Lord loves to do for the childless. He summons her. And notice the author says she stands at the door — that’s important. And the prophet says, “About this time next year, you shall embrace a son.”

Do you feel the pain in her reply? “No, my lord. Don’t lie to me.” How long do you think this woman had prayed? How long had she waited for the Lord to fill her womb? How many nights do you think she lay awake in silence, longing to hear the coos and the cries of a baby, the pitter-patter of toddlers’ feet on her floor? But the Lord knew. The Lord heard before she even asked. Sisters, take heart. Those of you who have prayed long and hard for the Lord to give you a baby: know this — your heavenly Father hears your prayers. He loves you. You can trust His hand. You can trust His timing.

Careful readers of these verses will notice that the language of verse 16 is almost identical to the language of a situation surrounding another childless woman in the Bible whose husband was old. Let your eyes fall on these verses as I read to you Genesis chapter 18, verse 10. Keep your eyes on verse 16.

The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.

Now, Sarah laughed when she heard Yahweh say that to Abraham — almost like she was saying, “Don’t lie to me.” But the Lord didn’t lie to her, and He doesn’t lie to this woman. He keeps His promise. And He gave Sarah a little boy, who she named Isaac. “He laughs” — that’s what his name means — because the Lord took her incredulous laugh and turned it into a laughter of joy. And I think this Shunammite woman knew exactly what God was saying through Elisha. He’s the man of God. Yahweh speaks through him as Yahweh spoke to Abraham: that she would have a son, like her grandma Sarah. What God did in the past for others, He will do in the present for her.

And I think that, because of what this woman does next. Verse 18.

When the child had grown, he went out one day to his father among the reapers. And he said to his father, “Oh, my head, my head!” The father said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” And when he had lifted him and brought him to his mother, the child sat on her lap till noon, and then he died. And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God and shut the door behind him and went out. Then she called to her husband and said, “Send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may quickly go to the man of God and come back again.” And he said, “Why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath.” She said, “All is well.” Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Urge the animal on; do not slacken the pace for me unless I tell you.”

So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her coming, he said to Gehazi his servant, “Look, there is the Shunammite. Run at once to meet her and say to her, ‘Is all well with you? Is all well with your husband? Is all well with the child?'” And she answered, “All is well.” And when she came to the mountain to the man of God, she caught hold of his feet. And Gehazi came to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for she is in bitter distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me.” Then she said, “Didn’t I ask you for a son? Didn’t I say to you, ‘Don’t lie to me’?”

He said to Gehazi, “Tie up your garment and take my staff in your hand and go. If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not reply. And lay my staff on the face of the child.” Then the mother of the child said, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he arose and followed her. Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the face of the child, but there was no sound or sign of life. Therefore he returned to meet him and told him, “The child has not awakened.”

When Elisha came into the house, he saw the child lying dead on his bed. So he went in and shut the door behind the two of them and prayed to the Lord. Then he went up and lay on the child, putting his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands. And as he stretched himself upon him, the flesh of the child became warm. Then he got up again and walked once back and forth in the house, and went up and stretched himself upon him. The child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. Then he summoned Gehazi and said, “Call this Shunammite.” So he called her. And when she came to him, he said, “Pick up your son.” She came and fell at his feet, bowing to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.

Only those who have lost a child have any idea what this woman is dealing with. The pain is just unimaginable to the rest of us. Death has invaded this woman’s life, but she knew just what to do: turn to the Lord first and fast. As soon as her boy dies, she rushes into action. She lays him on Elisha’s bed. Why do you think that is? She’s going to take her pain, she’s going to take her problem, to the Lord. She’s going to lay her burden at His feet.

She tells her husband, “I need a servant and our fastest donkey. I’m going to see the man of God.” And the husband, probably a little slow on the uptake, is like, “Why? Is everything okay?” And she says this: “All is well.” What? All isn’t well. Your boy is dead. It’s the Hebrew word shalom. It means peace, wholeness, well-being. How can she say that?

This is why I think she’s drawing off the story of Grandma Sarah. Isaac — Sarah’s laughter, the son of promise — also faced death, was also declared dead. Do you remember? And the Lord provided and spared her boy. And this woman rushes to the man of God, and she finds him on the mountain. He sees her coming and sends word to her: “Is everything okay? Is shalom with you? Is shalom with your husband? Is shalom with your boy?” And she says, “Shalom. All is well.”

Verse 27, though, reveals her heart. She came to the mountain, to the man of God, and she caught hold of his feet. I told you not to lie to me. Elisha sends Gehazi ahead in haste, and the woman stays with the prophet. And did you notice she says to Elisha the exact same thing, word for word, that Elisha said to Elijah, from Pastor Matt’s sermon last week? “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” She knew what Elisha knew: that when death invades, there’s only one safe place to be — with the man sent from God.

She is just like the woman who took hold of Jesus’s garments. Come hell, come high water, come affliction, nakedness, danger, sword — I won’t leave Him. He has the words of eternal life. Where else would I go? He is the Lord and the giver of life. He is my peace. He is my wholeness. He’s my well-being. He is my shalom. It is because of Him that I say, “All is well.”

There’s a story told of a wealthy Chicago businessman and lawyer who lost almost everything he had in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. When his family was suffering, he thought his family could use a vacation. So he sent his wife and his four daughters ahead of him on a ship for Europe, and he would join them in a few weeks after he had tied up some business matters back home. Some days after they left, he receives a telegram from his wife that the ship carrying his family had collided with another ship and sunk. Only his wife survived. So he immediately set sail for England.

The captain of the ship, aware of this man’s tragedy, summons him when their ship reached the point in the ocean where this man lost his four daughters. Now, it is said — and I don’t know if this is true — but it is said that this man at that time was reading 2 Kings chapter 4. Because at that moment, that man sat down to write words to a song that we have just sung:

When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, “It is well, it is well with my soul.”

You want to know how this unnamed woman — how Horatio Spafford, the author of “It Is Well” — can say “it is well” in the face of unimaginable suffering? Well, I’ll let Spafford answer that for himself:

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blessed assurance control: that Christ hath regarded my helpless estate, and hath shed His own blood for my soul.

Elisha came to the place where death had invaded, and he laid himself on the body of the dead child. The author tells us he put his mouth on the boy’s mouth, his eyes on the boy’s eyes, his hands on the boy’s hands — and life returned to the boy, and he was returned to his mother.

Christian, this is how you can say “it is well”: because, in your case, the Man of God, Jesus Christ, has laid Himself down in your death. He has identified Himself with you. He has applied His mouth to your mouth, His eyes to your eyes, His hands to your hands. He went down into death to give you life. Because Christ has regarded your helpless estate, because Christ has shed His own blood for your soul, you can say, “It is well.” This is the blessed assurance that will control all of your life.

So, friends, follow the example of your sister here. Turn to the Lord first and fast. Trust in His hand. When crisis comes, turn to the Lord. When death invades, trust in the Lord.

The last thing we’ll see in this text: when death surrounds, look to the Lord. Here’s our last point, to wrap up. Verse 38.

And Elisha came again to Gilgal when there was a famine in the land. And as the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, he said to his servant, “Set on the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.” One of them went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine and gathered from it his lap full of wild gourds, and came and cut them into the pot of stew, not knowing what they were. And they poured out some for the men to eat. But while they were eating of the stew, they cried out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it. He said, “Then bring flour.” And he threw it into the pot and said, “Pour some out for the men, that they may eat.” And there was no harm in the pot.

So, there’s a famine. We’ve been here before. Elisha’s with the sons of the prophets. He’s probably teaching — it’s like old-school seminary of some kind or the other. And there are many mouths to feed; later we learn there are like a hundred men. He tells them, “Boil the pot for stew.” And then some dude out gathering herbs unknowingly grabs a poisonous plant, chops it up, and tosses it in. They serve the stew and immediately notice there’s a problem. “There’s death in the pot. Somebody put poison in this pot.” You know what they did? “O man of God!” They turned first and fast to the man of God.

Elisha grabs flour, throws it in the stew, tells the boys, “Eat up.” And they just have to trust that, by the word of the prophet, the Lord is going to do a miracle and make their food safe to eat. They just have to act on faith. Well, it’s kind of like the other stories, isn’t it? Back in chapter 2, last week with Pastor Matt, the Lord did something similar through Elisha. Remember, he threw salt into a bad spring and made it good to drink? If these sons of the prophets were reading their Bible, they would remember it. Exodus 15 — the Lord did something similar through Moses: he threw a piece of wood into bitter water, and it turned sweet. And so these men must trust the Lord that what God did in the past for others, He will do in the present for them. And they must act in faith, believing that God is faithful and will keep His promises.

Verse 42.

A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give to the men, that they may eat.” But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” So he repeated, “Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.'” So he set it before them. And they ate and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.

Here’s the thing about hunger: it keeps coming back. Even after God does a miracle and feeds you, you get hungry again. They got hungry again. And a man comes with an offering for Elisha, for his students. It’s not much, but there’s a famine on — twenty loaves of barley, some fresh ears of grain. Elisha tells the servant, “Pass it out, hand it out.” And the servant says, “This isn’t even enough — this isn’t even close to feeding a hundred men.” But the Lord provides, and everyone eats, and there’s some left over.

Do you see what the Lord is doing through each one of these miracles? Long before Elisha was born, the Lord promised through Moses that He would raise up a prophet like Moses who would lead God’s people, whose words would be God’s words. And over and over and over again, throughout this account of the ministry of Elisha, it seems like he might be the guy. Elisha parted the Jordan River like Moses parted the Red Sea. Elisha makes undrinkable water clean, just like Moses. Elisha supplied food when there was none, just like Moses. Remember the “go up, you baldhead” thing? Judgment falls on those who oppose Elisha, just like judgment fell on those who opposed Moses.

And yet for all of Elisha’s greatness — even for all of Moses’s greatness — neither of them could fulfill all of God’s promises. Their ministries were major and great, but they were limited in scope. Elisha might have been able to heal some individuals, but the kingdom was still sick. Elisha can provide food, but as I said, hunger keeps coming back again. And so Moses and Elisha point forward to One who would be the ultimate fulfillment of all the promises of God.

Jesus Christ is the prophet of God, the Man sent from God, through whom all the promises of God find their Yes and Amen. He is the bread that gives eternal life. He is the water that quenches ultimate thirst. His cross is the wood that turns the bitter water sweet. His righteousness is the flour that purges death from the poison stew. His death is the death that brings life to all.

And so, friends, when the crisis comes, when death invades, when death surrounds — turn to the Lord first. Turn to the Lord fast. Trust in His word. Cling to the Man sent from God, because what God did in the past for others, He is faithful to do in the present for you.

Let’s pray. Lord, please receive our thanks. You are the author of life. You’re the giver of life. You’re the sustainer of life. And would You give us grace, that when we find ourselves in crises — even ones of our own invention — we would turn to You first and fast, and find from You all that we need for life and godliness. In Jesus’s name we ask. Amen.

Well, good morning. It’s good to see all of you here this morning. It’s good to see your smiling faces. There’s no better place to be this morning, let me assure you — except if Jamie’s preaching. Yeah.

Clive — “Jack,” as his friends called him — Lewis was born in 1898 into an upper-middle-class family in Belfast, Ireland. His childhood was shaped by family and academia. His home was filled with books, and from an early age, writing and reading were central to Clive’s life. But at age nine, tragedy struck: his mother contracted cancer and died. The result was that his family, which had once been close, became divided into grieving sects. His father could not overcome his grief; his father turned to atheism and sent his two sons away to a regimented boarding school, where Clive’s every effort was deemed unsatisfactory.

This resulted in Clive, as a young man, also turning to atheism. He turned to the occult, to sorcery — a belief that there was, indeed, no meaning in life. Clive fell into deep despair, dark depression. He pursued meaning in philosophy and literature, with which he was very talented and gifted. He gained a degree and became a professor at prestigious Oxford University. But the purpose of life continued to elude him.

In 1931, at the age of thirty-two, Clive Staples Lewis came to a turning point. Through the faithful testimony and friendship of a couple of close friends, Clive repented of his sins and surrendered his life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We know him as C.S. Lewis. He became one of the most influential Christian writers in modern history. C.S. Lewis would go on to write such Christian standards as Mere Christianity, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Screwtape Letters. He would go on to influence millions of men and women around the world, and his writing and his influence are still affecting us today.

C.S. Lewis repented of his sins in recognition of what they were. He gave his life to the Lord, and — as he referred to himself, a “reluctant Christian” — the Lord was with him from that day on and guided him. And the Lord used C.S. Lewis to build His church and His kingdom.

Here at Piqua Baptist — for those of you who are regulars here; but if you’re a visitor — we preach what’s called expository preaching, which means we take a book of the Bible and go through it verse by verse, a little bit at a time. There are many advantages to this. One of those is that it doesn’t allow us, as pastors, to cherry-pick. It gives us a view of all of Scripture. And there are many other benefits.

Today, where we find ourselves is in the Old Testament, in 2 Kings, chapters 1 and 2. Before we read those, I’d like to give you a little background of where we are. The time is 842 BC. This is 120 years before the Assyrians would conquer the northern kingdom of Israel, and 250 years before the Babylonians would conquer the southern kingdom of Judah. During this time, the Greek poet Homer had just finished penning the Iliad and the Odyssey, which we’re familiar with because of the recent movie. Homer had just recently penned those, and they were poems.

Wicked King Ahab, as we learned last week, had just passed, and his son Ahaziah took his place on the throne. Elijah’s ministry — the prophet to the northern nation of Israel — was nearing its end. History tells us he was in his early fifties. But there was a young man he was mentoring, and his name was Elisha. We’re familiar with him. He was about fifteen years younger than Elijah. Elijah’s protégé, Elisha, who was thirty-five at the time, is set to be the next prominent prophet.

That’s where we are. Our objective this morning is not any different from the objective we have every Sunday morning, or every time we open up the pages of Scripture. And that is — I pray that in these few short moments, God would be so kind as to show us a little more of His character. This is man’s greatest endeavor. It’s man’s greatest need. All other priorities fall under the pursuit of knowing God.

Did you know that God wants to be known? I’ve mentioned this in Sunday school so many times, you guys are probably tired of hearing it, but it bears repeating. If you want to go know our governor — good luck. There’ll be all kinds of red tape, and that’s if you get to see him. If you want to get to know our president, probably not going to happen. Infinitely higher than this is Almighty God, and with all His power and authority and sovereignty and unsearchable characteristics that are good, He stoops and says, “I want to be known by you.”

The greatest proof of this is what you’re holding in your laps. Every verse of Scripture, if it’s cleaned and mined, will show you a little more about the character of God. Exodus 3:14 says, “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you.'” Now, I know there are some great theological things that can be brought out of that, but I’m a simple guy. And what I hear God saying, when Moses says, “I don’t even know Your name,” is God saying, “I am. Tell them, ‘I am.'” He wants them to know Him.

Jeremiah 29:13–14. We’re familiar with Jeremiah — the verse right before this, where it says, “I know the plans I have for you.” But the most important verses in here are these, and they speak to God’s desire for us to know Him: “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord.”

Have you ever noticed that when you’re looking at Scripture, when He says things about Himself, it always starts out with two words? Almost always — not every time, but almost always — it says “He is.” One example is from Psalm 90:2: He is from everlasting to everlasting. If you go on through Scripture, it always starts out with “He is faithful. He is gracious.” You get the sense there that God is subtly saying, “I am, and I am available to you.”

Jesus, of course, is the final proof that the Lord wants His creation to know Him. In Hebrews 1:3, it says, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” John 1 — we’re familiar with this — says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And a little bit farther down in that chapter: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” One of the reasons Jesus came was to reveal the Lord to us.

I would offer to you this morning that to know God is to love God. Now, I know what Romans 1 says — I think it’s verse 21 — that they knew God but they didn’t follow Him. If you look at the Greek, that “knew” there in Romans 1 means an acquaintance. It’s shallow. What I’m talking about comes from John 1, where it says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” — and that “know,” in the Greek, means to know in depth, to know Him intimately. And of course, that is available to us.

All other priorities fall under knowing God. When we know God, repentance isn’t far behind. When we know God, we have opportunity at salvation. When we know God, sanctification. When we know God, life has meaning. When we know God, we have a hope for heaven. Every time we open Scripture — and this morning — the driving purpose is to see and know God.

It is my prayer this morning that God would be so kind as to use this broken, imperfect vessel to show you three aspects of God that I hope will encourage you and grow your affection for Him. Let’s pray.

Father, I do not have what Your people need. I do not have the words. But Father, You know them, and You know what they need. You know what they are burdened with. You know their hindrances. You know their joys and their sorrows. Speak now to them, O God. I pray, speak to them. Show them who You are in this passage, please, Lord, that their affections for You would grow, and out of an overflow of that affection, they would love their neighbor. I ask this in Jesus’s name. Amen.

As you turn to 2 Kings chapter 1 — 2 Kings chapters 1 and 2 will be our passage this morning. We learned last Sunday, Jamie’s main point was this: Our gracious God warns us of sin, so heed these warnings and flee to Christ for mercy. 2 Kings chapter 1 piggybacks right off that. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens — we’re going to read in chapter 1 when God’s warnings are ignored and His plan of salvation is rejected.

Brothers and sisters, it’s going to get dark. We’re going to talk about something that is going to make us all uncomfortable. But hang with me — the joy is coming. The main idea this morning is that through Christ, the judgment for our sins has been paid. Therefore, we are free to enjoy His presence forever.

The first point here is: God is good. As we look at 2 Kings chapter 1, what I’d like to bring out of this is: God is good, therefore He judges sin. If you’ll read with me, we’re going to read eighteen verses of 2 Kings chapter 1.

After the death of Ahab, Moab rebelled against Israel. Now Ahaziah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria, and lay sick; so he sent messengers, telling them, “Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this sickness.” But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? Now therefore thus says the Lord, You shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.'” So Elijah went.

The messengers returned to the king, and he said to them, “Why have you returned?” And they said to him, “There came a man to meet us, and said to us, ‘Go back to the king who sent you, and say to him, Thus says the Lord, Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but shall surely die.'” He said to them, “What kind of man was he who came to meet you and told you these things?” They answered him, “He wore a garment of hair, with a belt of leather about his waist.” And he said, “It is Elijah the Tishbite.”

Then the king sent to him a captain of fifty men with his fifty. He went up to Elijah, who was sitting on the top of a hill, and said to him, “O man of God, the king says, ‘Come down.'” But Elijah answered the captain of fifty, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.

Again the king sent to him another captain of fifty men with his fifty. And he answered and said to him, “O man of God, this is the king’s order, ‘Come down quickly!'” But Elijah answered them, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Then the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.

Again the king sent the captain of a third fifty with his fifty. And the third captain of fifty went up and came and fell on his knees before Elijah and entreated him, “O man of God, please let my life, and the life of these fifty servants of yours, be precious in your sight. Behold, fire came down from heaven and consumed the two former captains of fifty men with their fifties, but now let my life be precious in your sight.” Then the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So he arose and went down with him to the king and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron—is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of his word?—therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but shall surely die.'”

So he died according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken. Jehoram became king in his place in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, because Ahaziah had no son. Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?

So Ahaziah takes over for his father Ahab. And if you were here last week, or the weeks previously when we looked at the end of 1 Kings — Ahab was not a man you would want to emulate. So Ahaziah takes over the throne for his father, and he immediately falls into the same sin. He’s evil. He’s worshiping Baal. I know Jamie said it’s “Bahl,” but I am a hillbilly, as he said — so I say “Bay-al.”

Ahaziah falls through the lattice. In those days, they typically had flat roofs, and there was lattice around the tops of them — sort of a railing around the tops of their dwellings. King Ahaziah falls through, and he’s severely injured, to the point where he’s bedridden. So, being the wicked man that he is, he sends out men to go to Ekron to seek counsel with this false god. Elijah intercepts these men by the guidance of God and pronounces judgment. When they come back and tell Ahaziah, instead of repenting, Ahaziah doubles down, and he sends out the SEALs to arrest Elijah.

And we know what happens there. In eighteen verses — short eighteen verses — we see idolatry, we see pride, we see disobedience and disrespect. King Ahaziah knew what had happened on Mount Carmel — he was twelve years old when that great confrontation on Mount Carmel occurred, where God brought down fire and consumed the altar. Ahaziah was well aware of this. Ahaziah, by my account, was given four chances in this chapter alone to repent. Plus, he fell through the roof, which might have been a sign, maybe. And he’s seen fire come down from heaven — not once, not twice, but three times, if you count what happened on Mount Carmel. And instead of seeking the Lord and repenting, as King Hezekiah would do a century later, he seeks to consult the idol of neighboring Ekron, Baal.

It’s interesting to note that Ahaziah’s messengers going to Ekron would have to go straight through Jerusalem — that was the main thoroughfare on the way to Ekron. Ahaziah was an obstinate, evil man who refused to repent even when given every opportunity. So the Lord’s judgment fell upon him, and it says he died according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken. The Lord is good, so He judges sin.

But we would be remiss if we didn’t take a moment to look at the elephant in the room here. What is this about? Why did the Lord strike down 102 innocent men — all they did was call down fire? We’ve read this, and often we wonder what’s going on here. Yes, they were disrespectful to the man of God — but really, fire from heaven? Doesn’t that seem a bit extreme when we read it?

The difficult answer, brothers and sisters, is that there’s no innocent man. Every man who has ever walked this earth is guilty. Not just the New Testament, but the Old Testament backs this up — both declare that there is none righteous. I said this would be uncomfortable, and it is uncomfortable. God would be just. He would be right. He was right in striking down these 102 men. They were guilty before Almighty God, and God would be just and right to strike us down.

It is convicting that our first response when we read this is to think God is unjust in this — instead of thinking, “Is God just in this?” It seems He’s being unjust, and when we think of that, we also think that these men were innocent. This is what Scripture declares concerning God: “I the Lord speak the truth; I declare what is right” (Isaiah 45:19). Psalm 9:7–8 says, “The Lord sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness.” We also read in Isaiah: “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.”

When we read about God striking men down with fire, the question is not “How is He just in doing this?” The proper question is: Why has He not done this to all? It is difficult for our postmodern ears to hear that God judges sin. It’s not something we’re comfortable with, but it’s something we should be comfortable with. God is righteous. He is holy. Sin is not a slip-up. Sin is not a little mistake, or something to be winked at or downplayed or made excuses for.

Charles Spurgeon said this about sin. He said, “Sin is a deliberate treason against the majesty of Almighty God, an assault upon His crown, an injustice offered to His throne.” Spurgeon goes on to say, “Sin murdered Christ. Sin pierced the heart of incarnate God.” Does that sound small? Does that sound insignificant? Does that sound like something that needs to be swept under the rug? R.C. Sproul said, “The slightest transgression is an act of cosmic treason.” There’s no such thing as a little white lie. There’s no such thing. A little white lie is cosmic treason.

You really want to know how heinous sin is? Read the last few chapters of the Gospels. Read Isaiah 53. Take an afternoon and study the effects of crucifixion. Almighty God, as Creator, has the authority to judge sin. Almighty God, as the eternal King, has the authority to judge sin. And He does. If God does not judge sin, He’s not just. If God does not judge sin, He’s not righteous. If God does not judge sin, He’s not good. If God does not judge sin, He’s not trustworthy. If God does not judge sin, He’s not loving. If God does not judge sin, He’s not God.

With great love comes great anger at injustice. One commentator says this: “Anger is not the opposite of love. Hate is” — and the final form of hate is indifference. God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but His settled opposition to the cancer that is eating the insides of the human race that He created and sent His Son to die for. Is it loving for a parent to condone or overlook poor behavior in their children? Is that loving? And if they do that, what are the results? They’re not positive. Just as a good father corrects and administers discipline for wrong actions out of love, so Almighty God judges the sinful actions of men. And no matter how much we might balk, no matter how much we might not like to hear it, no matter how much it makes us uncomfortable — God’s judgment of sin is evidence of His goodness.

The greatest proof of the heinousness and the results of sin is not the death of Ahaziah. It’s the death of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin” — why? — “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Isaiah 53 backs this up. I’ve often said that if you want to look at the Bible in one verse, Isaiah 53:6 might be the place to look. Isaiah writes this, prompted by the Holy Spirit, looking forward to Christ: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” He goes on further, a little bit farther down in chapter 53: “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him.” That’s Christ on the cross. It was the will of God to crush His Son. Does that sound like sin is insignificant? Does that sound like something small that we should ignore or justify? He goes on to say, “He has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt…”

The first characteristic of God that we see this morning is that God is good, therefore He judges sin. God is good; therefore, He judges sin.

The second characteristic we see is in the second chapter of 2 Kings. Take a deep breath — the joy is coming, and it’s coming right here in these next two points. 2 Kings 2:1–14 shows us this characteristic: the Lord is near to those who love Him. Let’s look at 2 Kings chapter 2, the first fourteen verses.

Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. And Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. And the sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he said, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”

Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho. The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”

Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on. Fifty men of the sons of the prophets also went and stood some distance away, as they both were standing by the Jordan. Then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground.

When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.” And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more.

Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. And he took up the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. He took the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over.

We see a refreshing shift here from 2 Kings 1 to 2 Kings 2. In the last chapter, the idol Baal-zebub was mentioned four times. We see men determined to go their own way. We see men rejecting God. And we see the end as judgment and death. With the turn of the page to the second chapter of 2 Kings, we see something quite contrasting. We see two godly men, Elijah and Elisha. In these few verses, we see “the Lord” mentioned ten times — Yahweh, which means eternal, self-existent. When you see “the Lord” there ten times, that’s what it’s referring to: the eternal, self-existent One. In 2 Kings chapter 1, where we see Baal-zebub — what that name means is “lord of the flies” — the god of Ahab, Jezebel, and Ahaziah. Ahaziah is choosing a lord of the flies over the God who is eternal and self-existent, like Elijah and Elisha.

This section is focusing on the Lord. And our point here is: the Lord is near — consistently near — to those who love Him. From the moment the Lord called Elijah back in 1 Kings, he was strengthened and equipped for every endeavor. He was given the words for every situation. From the moment he was called, he was provided sustenance by the Lord in the midst of drought — by, of all things, birds and widows. Through him, Elijah, the Lord ministered miracles and historic victories. The Lord had given him power over even the weather, and an ability to outrun horses. He had given him a loyal friend in Elisha, who would succeed him and carry on the work of calling God’s people to repentance.

But most importantly, the Lord’s presence never left Elijah. In the most desperate moments — full of fear, hidden in a cave in the wilderness — we remember this: God was present with Elijah. He was near him. He spoke to him. He comforted him. Is there a better gift than this? The presence of the Lord. Is there a better way to navigate life, the hills and valleys of life, and to walk in obedience and fellowship with Almighty God? I say not.

Elijah knew what Joshua had been instructed and had lived out, where the Lord said to Joshua, “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” The answer to doubt and worry and fear is the presence of the Lord, and focusing upon that. For those who know God, for those who love God, for those who serve God, this is an ironclad, unbreakable, life-giving, hope-sustaining, strength-giving, faith-building, love-engendering, courage-invigorating promise — not from man, but from Almighty God. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you. Almighty God is promising that. And Scripture is full of men who knew this — Hebrews 11 lists them out.

He will not leave you in sickness. He will not leave you in loss. He will not leave you in mourning, nor in struggle, nor in poverty. He will not leave you in your youth, and He will not leave you in your old age, and He especially will not leave you in death. Is it any wonder that Elisha said, three or four times there, “I will not leave you”? It’s as if God is recording this in 2 Kings chapter 2, saying, “I will not leave you. My presence is assured.”

And as it goes on to say here in 2 Kings 2: “And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, ‘My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!’ And he saw him no more.” The Lord is near to those who love Him.

All men who follow God know this to be true. Abraham knew it while he dwelt in tents. Sarah knew it in her old age. Moses relied upon it as he faced Pharaoh. David trusted in the presence of God in the cave of Adullam. Jeremiah clung to it in the midst of weeping. Paul proclaimed it as he was being poured out as a drink offering. John had the presence of the Lord on the isle of Patmos. Corrie ten Boom was sustained by it through Auschwitz [CORRECTION:Ravensbrück]. Richard Wurmbrand was empowered by it while being tortured in a communist prison. Glenda Moss felt it while she was bedridden. Tina Flora was comforted by it at the loss of her mom. Angie Gay knows it as she struggles with health issues. The Lord is near to those who hear and yield to His call. His presence is constant, and it is life-giving.

The greatest proof of God’s nearness, of course, is Christ. Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23 both say this, the Old and the New Testament: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” — which means “God with us.” He’s with you, Matt. He’s with you, Steve. He’s with you, Todd.

In chapter 1, we see a man die — broken, prideful, and alone. In chapter 2, we see a man pass to eternity in the joyful presence of God. What a contrast. Even in death — maybe most importantly, in death — the Lord’s presence was with Elijah, and His presence will be with you. There is no greater gift.

If you’re here this morning and you don’t know this presence of the Lord, and you have heard about God’s judgment of sin — it’s not by accident that you’re here. You’re here by divine appointment. And that appointment is to see your sin for what it is, and to cry out, as all men down through the ages have, to Jesus Christ for forgiveness of your sins; to repent, to not downplay your sins or forget about them or put them in a closet, but to bring them before the Lord and claim Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, that you might enjoy the presence of the Lord, not only for this life, but for all eternity.

Matthew 28:20 says, “And behold, I am with you for a short period of time, for a few years, just when you need me.” Always. “I am.” “Behold, I am with you always.” Stephen, Alyssa — always. Always. The Lord is with you even to the end of the age.

The second characteristic that we see — the beauty of God — is that the Lord is near to those who love Him. We didn’t even scratch the surface of what that means, that He’s near us — the fact that when the Lord is near us, we can be strong, we can overcome sin, we can have hope, all kinds of things with the Lord being near us. Actually, the Lord being in us.

Now we turn to the last section, the last characteristic that we see of God. And that section says that God values and maintains His kingdom. 2 Kings 2:15–25.

Now when the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho saw him opposite them, they said, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” And they came to meet him and bowed to the ground before him. And they said to him, “Behold now, there are with your servants fifty strong men. Please let them go and seek your master. It may be that the Spirit of the Lord has caught him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley.” And he said, “You shall not send.” But when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, “Send.” They sent therefore fifty men. And for three days they sought him but did not find him. And they came back to him while he was staying at Jericho, and he said to them, “Did I not say to you, Do not go?”

Now the men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees, but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful.” He said, “Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him. Then he went to the spring of water and threw salt in it and said, “Thus says the Lord, I have healed this water; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.” So the water has been healed to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke.

He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.

Elijah — yeah. …don’t make fun of your dad’s bald head.

Elijah, the man of God, was gone. The prophets came out to greet Elisha. They even bowed down to him. They acknowledged him. But if you read closely, you see there’s some worry here, some consternation. While still kneeling, what did they say? “We’ve got fifty strong men here — let’s go find Elijah.” And they had seen Elijah taken up in this chariot, and yet they went and looked for him, even when Elisha said, “Don’t go.” For three days they looked for him.

The loss of Elijah was monumental, to be sure. The nation would feel it. The young prophets would feel it. The kingdom of God here on earth would feel it. It was appropriate to feel that loss, to miss the man of God. What would they do without Elijah? But God is faithful to maintain His kingdom.

Verses 19–25 not only spoke to the prophets of that time, in their consternation and concern about what was going to happen without their pastor-prophet — verses 19–25 are God saying, “I’ve got this.” You get the sense that the miracles here, in part, are God’s way of saying, “Calm down. I will build My kingdom. I have not left you alone. I will send, and continue to send.” It was God’s way of reminding the apprehensive prophets, “I’ve got this. I will protect. I will maintain and build My kingdom.” God confirms Elisha. He cleansed the contaminated water supply. He called down the thunder on some unruly teenagers. Elijah was gone, but God would continue to build, protect, and bless His kingdom.

Psalm 145:13 says, “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations.” In the last ten years — actually less than that, from 2017 until the present — R.C. Sproul has passed, Billy Graham has passed, Tim Keller has passed, John MacArthur has passed, Voddie Baucham has passed, Kay Arthur has passed, James Dobson has passed. And guess what? John Piper’s 80, D.A. Carson’s 79, Sinclair Ferguson’s 78, Wayne Grudem is 78, and Alistair Begg is 74.

God, in His goodness, has used men and women down through the ages — through the Old Testament, the New Testament, right into today’s time — to do mighty things to build His kingdom. But those men and women have passed. They’ve passed on to their reward. And those men and women will continue to pass. From Luther to Knox, from Knox to Edwards, from Edwards to Wesley, from Wesley to Spurgeon, from Spurgeon to Bonhoeffer, from Bonhoeffer to Piper — God has been faithful in maintaining His kingdom.

The greatest testament, of course, of God caring for and maintaining His kingdom is Christ. In Luke 17:21, Jesus declared, “Behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” And in Matthew 16:18, Jesus also says — “I will,” not “I might,” not “I will occasionally” — He says, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

The third characteristic is: God values and will maintain His kingdom. We don’t need to worry. I was at a church recently where the pastor there is getting older, but I looked out, and there were probably seven or eight young men in their late twenties. You could see they were pursuing the Lord. They loved the Lord. And you could see that the Lord was going to maintain that church. We have the same thing here, with Jay Herod and Nathan Day. The Lord has placed a calling upon their lives. When Jamie’s gone, this church — God’s going to take care of it. And we see that with Elisha.

2 Kings 1 and 2 show us that God is good; therefore, He judges sin. That He gives His unwavering presence to those who know and love Him. And that He values and will maintain His kingdom. Through Christ, the judgment of our sins has been paid, so we are free to enjoy His presence and kingdom forever.

We pray. Father, You are so good. One of the great things about eternity, Father, is that we will be able to delve into Your character forever and ever. We have not even scratched the surface of the greatness and the goodness of Your character. I pray this morning, Lord, Father, that we would be able to see this — that our love for You would grow, and again, that out of a love for You, out of an overflow of that, we would love our neighbor and seek to draw near You. Thank You, Father. In Jesus’s name. Amen.

Our benediction this morning comes from Numbers chapter 6. We’re familiar with this benediction, and what a benediction means: it’s a blessing as you go. This is the high priestly blessing, and I pray this over you this morning:

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

And I pray that you would go in that peace.

If you’re a visitor with us here at Piqua Baptist, we pick books of the Bible and work our way through them a little bit at a time. For a little while now, we have been in the book of Kings, the Old Testament book of Kings. If you’re not familiar with it, grab one of the black Bibles from a chair underneath in front of you — you’ll find our reading today, 1 Kings 20–22, beginning on page 302 of the church Bible.

We’re going to be considering chapters 20 through 22, so we have a lot of material, a lot of ground to cover. We’re going to work our way carefully through this text, and it’s going to take us forty-five minutes or so. So settle in — my teenagers would say, “Lock in, lock in, get ready.” We’re going to work our way through a few chapters of God’s Word this morning.

Here’s the central claim I’ll be drawing out of these three chapters: our gracious God warns us of the dangers of sin, calls us to heed those warnings, and to flee to Christ for mercy. I’ll be making the case today that the warnings of God in Scripture regarding sin in general, and our sin in particular, are an act of God’s grace, for our good — that we would heed those warnings and flee to Christ for mercy.

1 Kings 20, beginning at verse 1 — I’ll read down to verse 6 to begin, then pray, and we’ll work our way through.

This is the word of the Lord. Ben-hadad the king of Syria gathered all his army together. Thirty-two kings were with him, and horses and chariots. And he went up and closed in on Samaria and fought against it. And he sent messengers into the city to Ahab king of Israel and said to him, “Thus says Ben-hadad: Your silver and your gold are mine; your best wives and children also are mine.” And the king of Israel answered, “As you say, my lord, O king, I am yours, and all that I have.” The messengers came again and said, “Thus says Ben-hadad: I sent to you, saying, ‘Deliver to me your silver and your gold, your wives and your children.’ Nevertheless I will send my servants to you tomorrow about this time, and they shall search your house and the houses of your servants and lay hands on whatever pleases you and take it away.”

Let’s pray.

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. The one who sows to the flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And so, Lord, we ask for mercy this morning, as Your people prone to sow to the flesh, that You would stop us, spare us, and grant us grace that we might sow only to the Spirit and reap only eternal life. For the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Amen.

In January of 1986, I was in the third grade, Mrs. Canapki’s class, and the entire elementary school was gathered in the gymnasium to watch a live broadcast of the launch of the space shuttle Challenger. It would be the first time a teacher would go to space. I don’t remember the launch. I do remember seeing the space shuttle disappear behind an explosion, which we thought was normal. But as the broadcast continued, the broadcasters told us that was not normal. We watched a little longer and saw chunks of metal falling from the sky. The teachers didn’t quite know what to do — I don’t remember their faces, but they just ushered us back into our classrooms, and we went about our day. They knew what we didn’t know, but would later learn: we had witnessed a disaster. All seven crew members, including the schoolteacher, had lost their lives that morning.

The night before the Challenger disaster, some engineers sent a warning to NASA advising them to postpone the launch. They were concerned about the weather. There were certain O-rings — rubber gaskets designed to seal a joint, keeping the extremely hot gas inside the rocket from escaping — and they couldn’t guarantee those O-rings would work safely below 53°F. That January morning, it was forecast to be 29°F. NASA challenged that recommendation; the engineers couldn’t prove conclusively that the O-rings were unsafe at that temperature, and they eventually reversed their position. The flight went forward.

After the Challenger disaster, President Ronald Reagan commissioned an investigation — the Rogers Commission — and sure enough, it was discovered that the O-rings had failed. Gas had escaped, damaged the fuel tank, and caused an explosion. Truly a tragedy.

The book of Kings is like the Rogers Commission investigating a different kind of disaster. Kings tells the story of how the people of God were ultimately exiled from the land of Canaan. 1 Kings 20–22 is part of that investigation, seeking to answer the question: how did we get here? Were there warnings along the way? And what can we learn? These three chapters are something of a microcosm of the whole book — meaning, what happens here happens everywhere.

You remember the setting, don’t you? It’s been a few weeks since we’ve been in Kings, so let me remind you: we’re in the Promised Land, or what’s left of it. God brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt and into the land of Canaan. In the land, Israel was meant to keep God’s law; God would bless them for keeping it, and the surrounding nations would see that blessing, be drawn near, and learn that Yahweh was the one true God. But Israel failed to keep the law. Her kings were meant to be models of faithfulness to God’s law, to lead Israel to follow their Creator — but Israel’s kings failed as well. Arguments over who was in charge split the nation into two kingdoms: Israel in the north with her king, Judah in the south with hers.

Here in chapter 20, we’re in the middle of the story of King Ahab, a king in the north. He is the quintessential bad king — he gets a lot of press in the book of Kings. He is a worshiper of a demon god called Baal, and the Lord sent His servant, the prophet Elijah, to warn Ahab to repent of these sins, which he did not. And Yahweh offers Ahab several more warnings in our passage this morning.

Here’s our first one. The king of Syria, Ben-hadad, has risen up with a coalition of thirty-two other pagan kings, and he demands Ahab’s gold and silver, his wives and children. And, as we just read, the spineless coward Ahab agrees to these demands — says, in effect, “What’s mine is yours.” But what’s his is not his to give away. God gave Israel the land. God brought in the gold and the silver. Those women, those children, belong to the Lord. Ahab has no right to use them as shields for his own protection.

So Ben-hadad ups the ante: “Not only am I going to take your silver and gold — I’m going to send my servants tomorrow, and whatever they can put their hands on becomes ours.” A perfect picture of what sin does — you compromise a little, and it comes back for more, and more, and more.

So this coward king finds himself in a pickle, and in verses 7–12, Ahab calls his advisers together and tells them what he did, and they advise, wisely, that the king find a backbone and tell the Syrians to pound dirt. The two kings, Ahab and Ben-hadad, exchange trash talk — Ahab’s really bad at it, but it works — and Ben-hadad calls for war.

Let’s pick up reading in verse 13.

And behold, a prophet came near to Ahab king of Israel and said, “Thus says the Lord, Have you seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will give it into your hand this day, and you shall know that I am the Lord.” And Ahab said, “By whom?” He said, “Thus says the Lord, By the servants of the governors of the districts.” Then he said, “Who shall begin the battle?” He answered, “You.” Then he mustered the servants of the governors of the districts, and they were 232. And after them he mustered all the people of Israel, 7,000.

And they went out at noon, while Ben-hadad was drinking himself drunk in the booths, he and the thirty-two kings who helped him. The servants of the governors of the districts went out first. And Ben-hadad sent out scouts, and they reported to him, “Men are coming out from Samaria.” He said, “If they have come out for peace, take them alive. Or if they have come out for war, take them alive.” So these went out of the city, the servants of the governors and the army that followed them. And each struck down his man. The Syrians fled, and Israel pursued them, but Ben-hadad king of Syria escaped on a horse with horsemen. And the king of Israel went out and struck the horses and chariots, and struck the Syrians with a great blow.

A prophet comes and promises victory — Yahweh offering Ahab another chance to see there is one true God and the gods of the nations are nothing. He says, “I will give it into your hand this day, and you shall know that I am the Lord.” In other words, the Lord is saying, “I’ll prove Myself to you, Ahab — send your least experienced soldiers into the fiercest part of the battle, and I will win the war miraculously.” Which is what happens. Israel wins the day. The Syrian king narrowly escapes, but there was a great victory, and it was visible proof that Yahweh is the one true God.

The prophet returns later and tells Ahab this isn’t over — the Syrians will come back in the spring. They think Yahweh is just a god of the hills: “He does really good in the hills, but let’s meet them in the plains — we’ll have the advantage there, more people, chariots.” But the Syrians are about to find out that the rule and reign of Yahweh has no jurisdiction — He’s no hillside deity. He is the Lord of heaven and earth, and all peoples and all kings and all governments are under His authority. The Lord will grant victory to Israel in the plains as He did in the hills. The prophet comes to Ahab and says the same thing again, in verse 28: “I will give all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.” It’s almost the same thing he said earlier, except this time the word “you” is plural — the Lord is saying all of you will know that I am the Lord. Israel will know, and the pagan nations will know, that I am the Lord.

The people of Israel are described in this text as two little flocks of goats — and yet they strike down 100,000 Syrians in a single day. All of this meant to show Ahab, again, that Yahweh is God. All of this meant to show the Syrians, again, that Yahweh is God.

Once again, Ben-hadad survives the battle. He flees and hides in a city. His advisers come to him and say, “We know these kings of Israel — we know they’re merciful and compassionate men. So if you dress yourself in sackcloth, to show you’ve been humbled and sorrowful, and present yourself to the king, he will have mercy on you, and you may live.” Which is what they do. Ben-hadad, the wicked king of Syria, is delivered into the hands of Ahab. And guess what Ahab does? The spineless coward spares the wicked man’s life. He says, “Wait, Ben-hadad’s alive still? He’s my brother.” What? Rather than devoting the wicked king to destruction, as the Lord had commanded, Ahab goes into business with him and lets him go free.

And so the Lord — how many times is this now? — sends a prophet to the king with a warning: these are the consequences of disobeying the voice of the Lord. And the king has another chance to repent. Let’s pick up reading in verse 35.

And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said to his fellow at the command of the Lord, “Strike me, please.” But the man refused to strike him. Then he said to him, “Because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, behold, as soon as you have gone from me, a lion shall strike you down.” And as soon as he had departed from him, a lion met him and struck him down. Then he found another man and said, “Strike me, please.” And the man struck him—struck him and wounded him. So the prophet departed and waited for the king by the way, disguising himself with a bandage over his eyes. And as the king passed, he cried to the king and said, “Your servant went out into the midst of the battle, and behold, a soldier turned and brought a man to me and said, ‘Guard this man; if by any means he is missing, your life shall be for his life, or else you shall pay a talent of silver.’ And as your servant was busy here and there, he was gone.” The king of Israel said to him, “So shall your judgment be; you yourself have decided it.” Then he hurried to take the bandage away from his eyes, and the king of Israel recognized him as one of the prophets. And he said to him, “Thus says the Lord, Because you have let go out of your hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall be for his life, and your people for his people.” And the king of Israel went to his house vexed and sullen and came to Samaria.

Sometimes the Bible’s just strange. The prophet asks a guy to punch him in the face, and the guy says, “No, I’m not going to do that.” And the prophet goes, “Well, the Lord told me to tell you to.” And he says, “I’m still not going to do that.” So the prophet says, “Well, because you didn’t listen to the Lord, a lion’s going to eat you.” And a lion ate him. But he finds another guy, and that guy says, “Sure, I’ll hit you,” and hits him — because this prophet has to play the part. So he puts a bandage over his wounded eye, disguising himself as a soldier fresh off the battlefield. And as the king is passing by, he calls out: “King, I need your counsel. When I was in battle, someone came to me, placed the enemy into my hands, and said, ‘Guard this man with your life — if you lose him, it’s your life for his life, or you’ll have to pay a fine you don’t have.’ But I got busy, lost track of him, and he escaped. What should happen to me?” And the king says, “Well, you’ve said it yourself — it’s your life for his, or pay the fine.” Then the prophet takes off his disguise and speaks for God: “You’re the man — because you let Ben-hadad walk, whom I devoted to destruction, it is your life for his life, and your people for his.”

How long do you think it’s going to take for these kings to recognize that when a prophet comes and tells you a story, it’s not what you think — it’s about you. It’s always about you. Well, maybe I should state the obvious: 1 Kings 20 is a story told by a prophet to you. And I wonder — is the Holy Spirit saying to you this morning, “You’re the man”? Have you been like Ahab? Has God shown you grace over and over and over, and you’ve just ignored Him? Have you made compromise with some evil in your life? Friend, do you call “brother” what the Lord has devoted to destruction? Have you entered into a trade agreement with worldliness? Whatever the Lord is bringing to your mind at this moment, friend — don’t ignore it. It is a warning, and we should not ignore the Lord’s warnings, for they are nothing but God’s grace to us.

God gave grace to Ahab, giving him two victories, and Ahab refused those warnings. He made peace with the very evil God had commanded Israel’s kings to eradicate. There were many warnings. Ahab ignored them all, and it will lead to his undoing.

Chapter 21, verse 1.

Now Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And after this Ahab said to Naboth, “Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house, and I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.” But Naboth said to Ahab, “The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And Ahab went into his house vexed and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him, for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food.

But Jezebel his wife came to him and said to him, “Why is your spirit so vexed that you eat no food?” And he said to her, “Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, ‘Give me your vineyard for money, or else, if it please you, I will give you another vineyard for it.’ And he answered, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.'” And Jezebel his wife said to him, “Do you now govern Israel? Arise and eat bread and let your heart be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.”

All right, let’s clear the air again — sometimes the Bible’s a little weird. You have these two chapters, chapter 20 and chapter 22, both featuring these massive geopolitical stories — political intrigue, nations warring against nations, epic battles — and in the middle, you have a king who wants to plant a vegetable garden. We have to remember that the Bible was not written to us, though it was written for us. So we should expect there’s more going on than it first appears.

This is not simply about an exchange of real estate and King Ahab growing potatoes near his house. Naboth’s vineyard is this man’s ancestral inheritance. What you need to know is that when Yahweh brought Israel into the Promised Land, He divided the land between His people — each family was assigned a plot. The Lord established laws in Israel to ensure that land would stay with the family to which it was assigned, and even if you needed to sell your land, after a certain number of years it would return to your family in the Year of Jubilee. So Ahab demanding that Naboth sell his family’s inheritance is no small thing — it is a disregard of God’s holy Word.

Naboth knows the Bible. He knows Numbers 36: “The inheritance of the people of Israel shall not be transferred from one tribe to another, for every one of the people of Israel shall hold on to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.” That’s what Naboth is saying: “This is my father’s land. It stays in my family. My God gave it to me. You can’t force it away.”

But King Ahab didn’t care — God’s Word is just in the way of what he wants. He wants a vegetable garden. And even that fact — there’s more going on here than it seems. That phrase, “vegetable garden,” appears only one other place in the Bible: Deuteronomy 11. You don’t have to turn there, we’ve got it on the screen. God, speaking to His people, tells them: “For the land you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it by foot, like a vegetable garden. But the land you are entering to possess is a land of mountains and valleys, watered by rain from the sky.”

So Ahab wanting to turn this vineyard into a vegetable garden is more than an agricultural decision — it’s a theological decision. In Canaan, God’s people had to trust the Lord to provide rain in order to grow a crop; in Egypt, they had the Nile, irrigation by foot. And throughout the Old Testament, Israel is identified as God’s vineyard. So by turning a vineyard into a vegetable garden, Ahab — whether he knew it or not — is turning God’s people back to Egypt.

But Naboth refuses, like a good Israelite. And the king sulks like a baby — he pouts, he’s vexed and sullen, lies in his bed, hiding his face, refusing to eat. This king is pitiful — his army just won two battles, he lives in a palace, he has servants at his beck and call — and yet here he is, on his couch, sulking like a baby because he can’t grow vegetables. But this is what envy and greed do, don’t they? It makes us so small. It makes us forget what we have. It strips us of the pleasure of enjoying what God has already provided. It makes us discontent with all of God’s blessings at our disposal — all we care about, all we want to see, is what’s on the other side. And for this reason, Paul told us to guard ourselves from all forms of covetousness. 1 Timothy 6: “those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare.” Paul goes on: “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.” And that is just what we see next.

Never fear, weepy King Ahab — Jezebel’s here. She’ll get you what you want. Look at verse 7 again: “And Jezebel his wife said to him, ‘Do you now govern Israel? Arise and eat bread, and let your heart be cheerful. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.'”

The phrasing of verse 7 is very important — we’ve heard these words before. “Arise and eat” — wasn’t that what the Lord said to Elijah in the wilderness? “I will give you the land” — that’s God’s phrase. God spoke the same thing to Abraham: “I will give you the land.” God said the same thing to Israel. God said the same thing to Joshua. Jezebel is putting herself in the place of God — besides the fact that she’s a new incarnation of Eve in the garden, taking the lead, breaking God’s word, giving some to her passive husband who is with her.

Well, Jezebel gets to her wicked work. She drafts a letter in Ahab’s name and orchestrates a smear campaign against the righteous Naboth. She calls for a fast, makes Naboth be put forward so everyone can see him, and has two worthless men lie that he cursed the king and cursed God. The people do what Jezebel, through Ahab, commanded, and they take Naboth outside and stone him to death. Now Naboth is out of the way, God’s word is set aside, and Jezebel hands the vineyard over to her wimpy husband. The plan worked flawlessly — no one is the wiser. No more sullen king; he’s a happy boy — he’s got his green beans, his herbs, his sweet watermelon.

And then there comes a knock on the door. Sire, there’s someone here to see you. Old Elijah the Tishbite is back — renewed, rejuvenated, and no longer afraid of Ahab and his serpentine wife. Chapter 21, verse 17.

And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who is in Samaria; behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession. And you shall say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: Have you killed and also taken possession?’ And you shall say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick your own blood.'” Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” He answered, “I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord. Behold, I will bring disaster upon you. I will utterly burn you up, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel, and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the anger to which you have provoked me, and because you have made Israel to sin.” And of Jezebel the Lord also said, “The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel.” Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the heavens shall eat.

These are the first words Ahab and Elijah have exchanged in quite a long while, and they open like this: “Have you found me, O my enemy?” Elijah is the prophet of God, but haters of God are going to hate on the people of God. Elijah tells the king, “I have found you.” Rest assured, brothers and sisters — try as you might, your sins will find you out. And this is because your God loves you too much to let your sin rot your soul.

Judgment is pronounced. No one will escape — all of Ahab’s family will fall under God’s judgment. As the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, so the dogs will lick the blood of Ahab and Jezebel.

I just want you to see: this is another warning to the king. I’ve lost count — how many are we up to now? It’s grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. Anyone feel like, “When is this guy going to finally get what’s coming to him? How long will the Lord put up with his folly and nonsense?” If this section of Scripture is rubbing you the wrong way, it’s supposed to. You’re supposed to wonder how many chances this fool of a king is going to get. And you’re supposed to wonder — can the same thing be said of me? How many chances is this fool going to get?

Well, it seems to me though that grace did something. If you look forward down to verse 27, Ahab tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth, fasts, lies in sackcloth, and goes about dejectedly. The Lord Himself says he humbled himself. And so the Lord shows Ahab mercy, gives him more time, delays his judgment. But was Ahab’s repentance genuine? It looks like it on the outside — he has all the signs that someone is sorry and repentant. But time will always tell, won’t it?

If you get some time this afternoon, can I encourage you to read 2 Corinthians chapter 7? There’s a section where the Apostle Paul fleshes out this concept — he draws a contrast between what he calls worldly sorrow and godly repentance. On the outside, they look the same; on the inside, they’re completely different. True repentance is God-focused; worldly sorrow is self-focused. True repentance hates the sin; worldly sorrow hates the consequence of the sin. True repentance creates real, lasting change — reconciliation with God and others; worldly sorrow produces hardly any change at all, and no desire for reconciliation.

Time reveals that King Ahab did not change. His actions here have more to do with escaping God’s judgment than being reconciled to God — he hated the consequences of his sin more than he hated his sin itself. Notice: he did not restore the vineyard to Naboth’s family, nor did he tear down the altars to Baal. Next we will see Ahab back to his old ways.

A few more minutes. 1 Kings chapter 22, verse 1.

For three years Syria and Israel continued without war. But in the third year Jehoshaphat the king of Judah came down to the king of Israel. And the king of Israel said to his servants, “Do you know that Ramoth-gilead belongs to us, and we keep quiet and do not take it out of the hand of the king of Syria?” And he said to Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to battle at Ramoth-gilead?” And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.”

And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “Inquire first for the word of the Lord.”

So here’s what’s going on: Ahab’s doing fine — him and Ben-hadad have got their deal going, their trade agreement, everything’s cool between them. But Ahab remembers there’s a section of Israel, that God gave to Israel, still under the control of Syria, and he wants it back — but he doesn’t want to deal with Ben-hadad all by himself. So he asks for help from Jehoshaphat, king of the southern kingdom: “Will you help me if we go into battle against him and get our stuff back?” And Jehoshaphat agrees. But before they rush into battle, at least Jehoshaphat has the presence of mind to say, “Well, maybe we should talk to God about this first.”

Verse 6.

Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, “Shall I go to battle against Ramoth-gilead, or shall I refrain?” And they said, “Go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there not here another prophet of the Lord of whom we may inquire?”

It’s one of my favorite verses in this whole section.

And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah the son of Imlah, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil.” And Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say so.”

So Ahab brings all his prophet buddies together — they’re in the courtroom doing their dance — and they say, “You’re all good, king, victory is guaranteed, this is a guaranteed win.” And I don’t know what it was, but Jehoshaphat looks out over this prophet circus and thinks, “Is there anyone else? There’s four hundred guys here — is there anyone else we can ask?” All four hundred are saying the same thing, but Jehoshaphat’s like, “I don’t know, there’s something fishy here.” And Ahab’s like, “Well, I’ve got this other guy named Micaiah, but I hate that guy — he only says bad things about me.”

So they call Micaiah, and they tell him, “All right, buddy, listen — you’re being called up, but here’s the thing: we’ve already heard from four hundred guys, and they’ve given us a good report. Now don’t you do the thing you always do and give us a bad report. Okay? Just go with the flow.”

Look at verse 14 — I love this guy. He says, “As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak.” Amen. All of us need some friends like Micaiah, willing to say the thing that’s right to say, even if it hurts our feelings.

So they bring Micaiah in — it’s a hilarious scene. The prophet circus is going on, and there’s one guy with iron horns, acting out what’s going to happen — Ahab’s going to gore out the Syrians. And they turn to Micaiah and say, “Okay, Micaiah, what do you say?” And Micaiah’s like, “Yeah, no, looks good to me — I mean, horn guy seems real convincing, go ahead, you’re going to do great.” But for some reason, Ahab senses the sarcasm and says, “Micaiah, tell us what you really think.” Verse 17.

And he said, “I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd.”

Who’s the shepherd? Ahab’s the shepherd. The people are scattered, and there’s no shepherd. You hear what he’s saying: “I saw the people scattered on the mountains as sheep who have no shepherd.”

And the Lord said, “These have no master; let each return to his home in peace.”

And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “I told you so — I told you he always has bad stuff to say about me.” So Micaiah goes on to tell Ahab what’s happening. There are four hundred false prophets saying one thing, and one true prophet saying another. Where have we been? We’ve seen this before. Ahab’s been here before, hasn’t he — back on Carmel? 450 prophets of Baal and Elijah the Tishbite. Here we have 400 false prophets with a lying spirit, and one guy telling the truth. Ahab has been here before. What is this? Another warning. This guy is asleep in his bed, there’s a fire in the house, and God is shaking him by the shoulders time after time, and he won’t wake up.

Even though the Lord tells him through Micaiah what He is doing — putting a lying spirit in these men — Ahab still rejects the truth, still listens to lies, and goes to battle. He tells Micaiah, “I’ll deal with you,” and has him arrested. And Micaiah — I just love this guy — says, “If you survive this battle, then I’m the false prophet.”

Ahab disguises himself as a regular soldier — it’s funny, he tells Jehoshaphat, “You dress up like a king, I’ll just dress up like a regular guy, and we’ll both go into battle.” What a dummy. He goes into battle dressed like a regular guy, and the Bible says an unnamed soldier draws his bow back and shoots at random. When there’s a sovereign God in heaven, nothing is random. That random arrow flies and lands in the one vulnerable place in Ahab’s armor. They rush him off the battle, put him in his chariot, prop him up so he can watch the rest of his army fight, and his blood drains out and is licked up by the dogs. The word of the Lord is fulfilled.

Do you see what these three chapters are telling us? Ahab is repeatedly warned, repeatedly given opportunities to repent. Repeatedly he chooses to ignore God’s Word, and his sin catches up to him. The Lord’s arrow always finds its mark.

Well, the lessons for our lives are easily drawn. The people to whom this book was written — the Jews stuck in exile, their own version of the Rogers Commission, trying to figure out “why are we here” — they see in Ahab their own history. The Lord sent them warning after warning, which they ignored. And the lesson is the same to us today, friends. Is a fire alarm going off in your life, and you’ve just kept ignoring it? This text is a mercy-laden warning, calling all sinners to repent.

Whereas we have been like Ahab, the Lord Jesus has been like Naboth. Both are caretakers of their father’s vineyard. Both had false charges leveled against them. Both were killed at the hands of evil men. But there’s a big difference: where Naboth’s blood calls for justice, the blood of Christ calls for mercy. Where Ahab’s sin fell on his own head, Christian — your sin has fallen on the head of Christ.

NASA had their warnings. They could have delayed the launch, and disaster would have been averted — but they had no way of knowing for certain whether their engineers were right. We, however, have absolute certainty that these warnings are valid and true. So PBC, follow God’s faithful, merciful warnings to your knees. Make no compromise with sin or worldliness. Turn to Jesus Christ today, because there’s more mercy in Him than there is sin in you. And by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, sinners receive mercy and grace and unmerited forgiveness from God on high.

Jesus Christ was the king that Ahab wasn’t. He doesn’t murder and steal inheritance from God’s people — Jesus was murdered to restore God’s inheritance to His people. It’s all yours in Christ. Turn to Him today, and rest in His work. Amen.

Father, we thank You for this lesson, this teaching, and these warnings. We pray that You would write these truths upon our hearts, that we would not be forgetful and ignorant, that we would not ignore Your warnings as Ahab did, but that we would heed them, take them seriously, fall on our knees, and find mercy and grace. Amen.

Take out your copy of God’s Word. If you don’t have a Bible, there will be one provided for you under a chair in front of you somewhere nearby. Point your Bibles to Colossians chapter 4. Colossians chapter 4.

There are a number of things I quite enjoy in life — the life the Lord has given to me. One, I love being a follower of Jesus Christ. Two, I love being a husband to my wife. I love being a father to my children. And I love being a pastor to you all. It is a great joy that you give to me, to be able to open God’s Word with you week after week, and to pray and preach and seek God’s Word, and to be instructed, counseled, and cared for.

We are finishing up our missions conference this week, and so if you have your Bible open — Colossians chapter 4; if you have one of the church Bibles, that’s page 985 — I’ll read Colossians 4:2–4, and then we’ll pray and get to work.

Colossians chapter 4, verse 2. This is the word of the Lord. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

Let’s pray.

You are our refuge and our glory, and the lifter of our heads. We lay down in sleep and rise, for You have sustained us. O Lord, feed us from Your Word this morning, and I pray that You would put in each of us an appetite for Your Word that is stronger than the appetite to distract us with the food coming later. Feed us. Feed our souls, for we are hungry, desperate people. And the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Amen.

Here’s the big idea this morning: because God guarantees His global glory, God’s people pray with persistence, vigilance, and thankfulness for open doors and clear proclamation. We’ll leave that on the screen for a few moments for those of you who are taking notes. That’s where we’re headed.

Let’s start with a question. What happens when a creature whose memory tells him there are many good things in life to enjoy, while his present state is no longer capable of experiencing those joys?

C.S. Lewis, the author behind The Chronicles of Narnia, wrote a book in exploration of that question. It’s called The Great Divorce — some of you may have read it. In this book, those who reject Jesus Christ and His plan for their life, who prefer some lesser good — some grievance, some identity, some desire — over God, become like ghosts. They lose their solidity. They become insubstantial, unable to bear the real pleasure of true joy. Lewis proposes in this book that the rejection of Jesus Christ makes man less man, less human, and that the preference for self-rule suffocates joy.

One of the strange effects of the COVID-19 virus was the loss of taste and smell. Do you remember? Not everyone had this, but some of us did. I remember people saying they could no longer enjoy their morning coffee because it just tasted like hot water. Having your sensory receptors turned off is strangely irritating. Being unable to smell flowers, or yourself after a workout, made people feel insecure and self-conscious.

What COVID did for taste, sin does for your soul.

The Bible teaches that there is one God in three equally divine persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — who know and love and glorify and enjoy one another, and have done so forever. The three persons of the Godhead are infinitely glorious and irresistibly beautiful. God is without beginning, without end, without limit or ceiling. He is capable of infinite pleasure, the satisfaction of which is Himself — His own unsurpassed excellencies. And here’s the crazy part: God created man to fold him into the experience of His endless pleasures. True happiness for the creature is the apprehension of, and the experience of, God’s glorious perfections. In other words, God made man to enjoy God, and to share His pleasure in Himself.

But the Bible says that mankind turned from God and sought joy in lesser things. Man sought to make happiness his own way — he broke God’s commandments. The Bible’s word for this is sin. And by making himself his own man, man became less man — less, Lewis would say, substantial. Those God-given pleasure receptors were dulled. Billions of people alive today do not know the glorious, beautiful excellencies of the God who made them to enjoy Him.

Global missions exists to welcome joy-starved sinners into the endless delights of the fellowship of God. Billions of people alive today are blindly grasping for joy and satisfaction in the darkness of their souls. They are thirsty people, lowering buckets into empty wells. And we, who through God’s grace by faith have drunk from the eternal life-giving well, go to show them where they can find satisfaction for their souls, and the meaning of their very lives. That’s missions, and we are all called to participate in this glorious work. Some of us will sacrifice and go, crossing cultures, crossing continents. Some of us will sacrifice and give for those who cross cultures and continents. So in global missions, there are only these two options: you go, or you give to those who do.

This morning, as we bring our missions conference to an end, I’d like us to consider the exhortations of the Apostle Paul in Colossians 4. This year’s conference has been about prayer — that’s what we’ve been doing all week long, we’ve been praying. Whether you go, whether you give, you pray. Prayer is the key for global missions. And Colossians 4 calls us to pray with perseverance and vigilance for God’s global glory.

But before we go to the exhortation of Paul in Colossians 4 — before we hear the command pray — I want to ground us in the assurance that God gives us that He hears our prayer. I want us to consider first the guarantee we have in prayer.Otherwise, you’re not going to pray.

One pastor likened prayer to a wartime walkie-talkie. You’re in the trenches, in the battle, and you key up the walkie-talkie and call in the air strike. And the only way a soldier is going to key that mic is if he knows there’s someone on the other end who’ll send in the air strike. So before we hear the Apostle Paul say “pray constantly,” we need to be reminded: there’s someone on the other end.

To make that case, let’s begin at the end. If you have your Bibles open, turn with me to Revelation chapter 7. If you’re new to the Bible, Revelation is toward the back; in the church Bible, that’s around page 1,032. Revelation chapter 7, verse 9 — God guarantees His global glory. The Apostle John, reporting from heaven, writes:

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Heaven is a loud place.

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

How do you know that when you came here last Sunday night, all the way through Monday evening, and you prayed for the unreached peoples in these persecuted countries — how do you know God heard you? Here’s how: Revelation 7:9. Every tribe, every people, every nation is before the throne of Jesus Christ, clothed in white robes, washed in the blood of the Lamb, crying out, “Salvation belongs to our God.” That’s how you know. That’s why you pray. You pray because God hears. You pray because God always hears.

God guarantees His global glory. The nations will come. The peoples will praise Him. Sinners will find salvation in the Son of God. It is more certain than the sunrise. Those you prayed for in Algeria, Azerbaijan, Eritrea, Libya, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen will come. And the Bible says not just Algerians in general — every people group, every language group in Algeria will be at the throne, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God.” God guarantees His global glory.

It may feel, on a Sunday night with just a couple of people at a prayer meeting, like it doesn’t really matter. It may feel like you’re just one person — one little old you, on your knees at your bedside in prayer. But on the other end of that walkie-talkie is the God of all glory and grace, who is sovereign over all people and all things. So do not concern yourself with how little you are. Remember who is on the other end.

The Lord guarantees answers to your prayer by the cross and by the empty tomb. You understand that the cross of Jesus Christ was not a chance at victory — God was not rolling the dice. The cross of Jesus Christ secured the victory forever. So when you pray, know that this God will act on your behalf for His global glory — that your Father will gather His elect from the four corners of the earth, that God the Father has guaranteed the Son’s global glory and the salvation of His elect.

So Sunday night, all through Monday, when we prayed for God’s elect in Libya, Nigeria, North Korea, Azerbaijan — God used our prayers to fulfill verse 15, that “he who sits on the throne will shelter them.” He’s using our prayers to fulfill verse 16. In these countries, hungry people are coming and being fed. Thirsty people are coming and drinking of the wells of eternal life. Christ is being their shepherd. He is guiding them to springs of living water. He’s wiping away every tear from their eyes, and they are praising Him. God’s glory is guaranteed. You called in the air strikes against the enemy, and God heard, and He sent forth His Spirit to soften hearts and open deaf ears and open blind eyes.

Christian, do you know that by your prayers, your God sent an air strike against the demon god of Islam in Pakistan? By your prayers, men and women in Pakistan are seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. They are turning from their sin. They are being reconciled to their Savior. They are experiencing everlasting joy. By your prayers, abusive husbands in Sudan are raising their hands in worship to Yahweh, and no longer raising those hands in wrath against their wives. Young girls in Syria are finding God as their provider, rather than selling their bodies for provision. Pleasure receptors long dormant are being flipped on, and men and women are following those pleasure sensors to find joy for the first time in Jesus Christ. That is happening because you prayed.

Do you believe that? When you pray, is that what you see? If you find yourself thinking, “Pastor, how can you possibly know that?” — well, now you know the reason you have a problem praying.

We pray because we know who’s on the other end of the walkie-talkie. We pray because we know God hears us. We pray because we know what God said in Isaiah 14: “As I have planned, so shall it be.” We pray because God has not only ordained the end — Revelation 7 — He has ordained the means to the end: prayer. Let me revise that. Your prayer, brother and sister — you are the means to God’s global glory. You, on your knees at your bedside, calling in air strikes against the kingdom of darkness. You.

With that in our minds, here now are the commands of Almighty God through the Apostle Paul.

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

There are at least five things about prayer in general, and praying for missions in particular, in these few verses — five things. Three things we pray with. Two things we pray for.

We’ll consider the three things we pray with. First, Paul says, pray with persistence. Continue steadfastly — it’s one word in the original. Some of your translations will say “devote yourselves to prayer.” It means: be strong, be enduring, be diligent, persist obstinately. Now, I’ve been your pastor long enough to know that some of you are capable of amazing feats of obstinance. Let us be obstinate in praying for God’s global glory. Let us be like Jacob wrestling with the angel through the night, taking hold of our God and saying, “I won’t let go until You bless me.” Be constant in prayer. Every encounter you have with sin, with evil, with the effects of sin — call in the air strike. Make it an occasion for prayer.

It seems to me a lot of Christians don’t really know what to do with the imprecatory psalms. Do you know what I mean by imprecatory? The imprecatory psalms are the psalms that call for God’s judgment — they call down curses from God upon His enemies. We read these passages of Scripture and don’t really know what to do with them, and often find ourselves wondering, “Why is this in the songbook God has given to His people?” Are we supposed to call down curses against the abortionist, and the pornographer, and human traffickers? No — we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. But we do wrestle. Ours is a spiritual war.

So, PBC, take those imprecatory psalms in your hand at your bedside and call in air strikes against the forces of darkness, against the spiritual powers, against the demonic lies behind abortion and pornography and human trafficking. Call in air strikes against the demon god of Islam, and secularism, and Hinduism, and New Age spirituality.

Do you have a family member or a loved one you’ve been praying for — someone you’ve shared the gospel with who still won’t believe? The Bible says this is because the god of this world has blinded the mind of the unbeliever, to keep them from seeing the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Pray that God would overcome the enemy and open the sinner’s eyes.

Pray with persistence. Don’t lose heart. Read the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18, and pray like her. The prophet Daniel was told, “When you prayed, we heard, and an answer was sent” — but that answer was withstood by the enemy for twenty-one days, and then the angel Michael came and broke through, and the answer came. Now, I don’t know how all that works. But what I do know is that when you pray, God hears — and if there is a delay in the answer, keep praying.

Second thing: pray with vigilance. Paul goes on — “pray steadfastly, being watchful in it” — means stay awake, remain alert. This is why we call it a prayer vigil. The word “watchful” here appears in the present tense, because, Christian, we are to be ready to pray anywhere, at any time, for any need. It’s the same word Jesus used in the garden: “Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation.”

Let us pray with our eyes open, aware. Open your eyes to what the Lord is doing locally and globally. Pray because the Lord is at work locally and globally. He is on the move. There are a number of ways you can stir up your heart in prayer: sign up for missionary newsletters, sign up for Voice of the Martyrs, sign up for those websites that track missions news, and when an email comes through, pray for that thing. Share those prayer requests with your discipleship groups. The point is: stay awake, pray aware.

Third thing Paul says: pray with thanksgiving. Now, that might feel out of place — shouldn’t thanksgiving come afterGod answers the prayer? Yes. And thanksgiving should come before God answers the prayer too. We know that God hears us. We know that as God planned it, so shall it be. And so we thank God before the answer, and we thank God after the answer.

This is not the only time the Apostle Paul told us to thank God before we get the answer. Philippians 4:6 — a lot of you have this memorized: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” So — I’m worried about something. I pray. I thank God. Well, why would I thank God if He hasn’t answered? What am I thanking Him for? You thank God for the circumstance that drove you to pray.

A lot of us are — how do I put this — predicament-averse. We’ll do almost anything we can to avoid finding ourselves in a place, some kind of dilemma, where we have no other option except to trust in the Lord. In some ways, that’s just normal — that’s just being human. But what if, from the perspective of eternity, there is a greater blessing reserved for faith exercised in the predicament than the blessing of having the Lord prevent you from the predicament? Let me say that again: what if there’s a greater blessing that comes from faith exercised in the predicament than the blessing of being withdrawn, exempted, from that predicament? And by the way, it’s not a “what if” — it’s an “is.” It has to be an “is,” because we serve a sovereign God. It cannot be otherwise. Otherwise, God would either be powerless, or capricious and malicious — just making us go through things because He’s like a little kid with a magnifying glass on ants.

When you find yourself in some kind of dilemma, some kind of affliction, some occasion to pray — it is because God intends a greater blessing for you. That’s why we pray with thanksgiving. The blessing is not just the answer — it’s the wrestling through the night for the answer. So let us not lean away from the occasion that would cause us to trust in the Lord. This is where our Lord shows Himself strong. Friends, in your weakness is where your God does His best work.

And we look out on the world and see 7,000 unreached people groups — 3.2 billion people who have no access to the gospel. That’s not like your unbelieving neighbor. That’s not like your unbelieving family member this morning — they could have woken up, hopped in their air-conditioned car, and found a gospel-preaching church quite easily with just a couple of Googles. But that is not true for half of the people alive on this planet today. They have no access to the gospel of Jesus Christ. They don’t know a Christian, and they don’t know anyone who does. And so we look over that and think, “Mountain — insurmountable.” But let us not forget what we learned last week: our God moves mountains, and God has ordained the way those mountains would be moved — prayer, the prayer of faith.

And that brings us to verses 3 and 4. Prayer is the key for global missions.

At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

Three things to pray with, and now here we have two things to pray for.

The Apostle Paul, who wrote this letter under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is writing it from prison. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that he doesn’t ask the Colossians to pray for his release — rather, he asks them to pray for an open door for God’s Word and for clarity in preaching. That gives you a sense of the Apostle Paul’s priorities. Pray for the success of global missions. And this is how you pray: pray that God would open doors for His Word; pray that God would send missionaries through those doors to share the good news with those who’ve never heard.

If you’re not a Christian, I’m glad you came to church today. Can I tell you how you came to church today? You decided this week, or perhaps even this morning, that you would get up and go to church, and you picked Piqua Baptist as the church you’d go to today. That was your decision — I’m glad you made it. But can I tell you how you actually got here? The people you see sitting around you — they prayed for you. It felt like your decision to come to Piqua Baptist this morning — and it was your decision — but who put that idea in your head? These people prayed that you would be here this morning, so that you would hear this.

Dear friend, if you continue on this path of your life — doing things your own way, rejecting God’s plan for your life, not obeying God’s commandments — it will not lead to your flourishing; it will lead to your floundering. And that’s the least of your worries, because when this life ends, you’ll be under the judgment of God eternally. But God loves you, and so He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for the sins of those who would turn to Him in faith. So when you turn to Jesus Christ today and repent of your sins, God forgives you of your sins and unites you to His Son, where you can find pleasure evermore in the very purpose of your life. That’s why we prayed. That’s why you’re here.

Friend, don’t leave this place today without learning more about this man, Jesus Christ, and forgiveness for your sins. In fact, I’d invite you to stick around for the banquet afterwards, even though you didn’t sign up — it’s free food, what can you lose? Talk to somebody who’s a Christian. Ask them more about this man, Jesus Christ.

PBC, the doors won’t open unless God opens them, and the means God has chosen for doors to open is for you and me to pray. So we pray — we pray the doors would open, and the people who have no access to the gospel would be granted access. 7,000 people groups, 3.2 billion people — it does feel like a mountain, doesn’t it? But that’s not how Jesus saw the world He lived in. Do you remember what He told His disciples? “Fellas, look — the fields are white unto harvest. Pray that God would send laborers.”

In 1885, there were zero known Protestant Christians in South Korea. Zero. By 1985, nearly 20% of the entire country was calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. In less than a hundred years, South Korea went from being a mission field to being one of the largest missionary-sending countries in the world. One generation. You look at that mountain, and you pray, “Move” — and God will move the mountain.

Second thing: pray for clarity in preaching. It’s kind of an astonishing thing, just as a pastor, to read this. The Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is asking the Colossian church to pray that he might speak clearly — that tells you the Apostle Paul understands himself to be dependent on the Lord keeping his message clear in response to the prayers of his churches. It’s astonishing.

But that’s not the main thing. The main thing is: we pray for clarity in preaching because the Lord may open doors for His Word, but if that word is not clearly preached, the open door doesn’t mean anything. If those walking through that door are not preaching the gospel clearly, the door might as well not have been opened. And those of you who have served on missions teams, or who know a little about missions, you know that global missions can be a mixed bag. Not everything that people call missions is missions. If there’s no proclamation of the gospel, it’s not gospel mission.

So we must pray that those we support, and those we send, would be equipped to preach a clear gospel. And in order for the gospel to be clearly proclaimed, it must be clearly understood — so pray for theological institutions, pray for theological clarity, pray for those working among the unreached, that they would have an understanding of God’s Word. And when we have opportunity to send, let us make sure we are sending those who know the Bible, who have a clear grasp of theology, who are humble, who are prayerful, who are deeply committed to seeing Christ formed in others over the long haul, and who are uncompromisingly church-centered.

Prayer is the key for global missions. The COVID virus dulled pleasure receptors, and sin has dulled the pleasure receptors for billions of people alive today. There are thirsty people lowering empty buckets into empty wells. We pray, we give, we go, because the gospel is the means God uses to open blind eyes and raise spiritually dead people, to bring them into the fellowship and the all-satisfying enjoyment of Himself.

Our missions conference comes to an end, but our prayers must never come to an end. We must continue to pray with persistence, with vigilance, with thanksgiving, that God would open a door and give grace that His Word would be preached clearly and boldly. And so let’s pray for that now.

Lord, open doors, and make it so that Your Word is clearly and faithfully proclaimed among the unreached. May global missions never be far from our minds. May we pray for it often — the prayer of faith, expecting You will answer, knowing You hear us. You always hear us. Amen.

Good morning, Piqua Baptist.

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Joel Hollins. I come here like twice a year or so, but I really enjoy fellowship with your church — brothers and sisters in Christ that I’m getting to know better and better every time we come here. So we really feel like this is a home for us. You are so welcoming and encouraging to me and my family. Praise the Lord for what He’s doing in your church, right? He is setting a fire in your hearts for the gospel and His kingdom being spread out all over the world. It is so exciting to be a part of that. So thank you for the privilege it is to just open up God’s Word with you, encourage you in these things, and see the Lord at work in your congregation. There’s nothing better than that. So I’m thankful to do that today from Mark chapter 11.

Before we do that, though, I want to remind us of the Great Commission, because that’s what we’re here to talk about — missions. And it never gets old to me to continue to read Matthew 28:18–20:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

And praise the Lord — we’ve seen that even this morning, with a baptism, right? You are making disciples here.

The main driving force of the Great Commission, of course, is that one command: make disciples. It’s modified by three words in there — going, baptizing, and teaching. And while there’s much we can say about that, I want us to focus on one of those modifiers: the going one. That’s the emphasis God has commanded the church to make disciples by going to all the nations. I like to call this the scope of the Great Commission. The particular emphasis, the essential focus of this command, is that we are to set our sights on all peoples of all places, wherever they may be. We must be aimed at going to all the nations — not just our neighborhoods or our own country.

So to obey our Lord, we must go out from where we find ourselves and plant new churches, for that is where disciples are made — and we must emphasize the going to all the nations. Our church planting is aimed at planting churches cross-culturally. We cannot simply seek to evangelize people who live next to us and who are just like us. If we do that, then we’re missing the scope. As the book of Acts comes to a close, we already find ourselves in the “ends of the earth” stage. Missions is fundamentally focused on crossing cultures.

The reality is that there are many churches who do not have this scope in mind. They’re focused on themselves and their immediate surroundings and their community — maybe even their own nation. The fundamental, underlying reason why most churches are not aimed at the nations in missions is simply this: they’re not praying for them.

When Jesus was walking on the earth, this same thing could easily have been said about the nation of Israel. Israel was not focused on the nations — they were focused on themselves. And so Jesus wants to reorient our perspective. He wants to take our heads in His hands and lift them up, so that we see the Father’s glory among all the nations. He wants to show us that the reason the Father sent the Son is because God so loved the world — and “God so loved the world” means He loves all the nations of the world, all the different peoples. As Jesus teaches Israel this lesson in our passage today, in a very dramatic fashion, we learn about that underlying distinction between those who are focused on themselves and those who are focused on the nations. And that distinction has everything to do with our prayers.

In order to teach us His will, God sometimes uses very dramatic events in our lives. For example, I didn’t realize how much I loved my son until one day he almost drowned — thankfully, he was rescued by a friend of mine. But from that moment on, we were much more aware of where the kids were when they were around water. My kids are the same way — sometimes as they’re growing up, some drastic measure is needed for them to learn a lesson. Sometimes they have to learn things the hard way, and sometimes I have to take a drastic measure — remove a privilege or something — for them to learn a lesson. Unfortunately, many of the important lessons we learn, we learn the hard way.

So in our passage today, Jesus takes some drastic measures. And the drama we observe is a lesson that the nation of Israel failed to learn for thousands of years. I pray that as we approach our text in Mark 11 today, we would be shocked — as Jesus intends for us to be shocked — and that we would heed the lesson He’s trying to teach us in it.

The central story in Mark 11:12–25 is the cleansing of the temple. But it needs to be read in the context before and after, to really understand it. The cleansing of the temple is sandwiched on either side by Jesus’s preoccupation with a fig tree, and the two stories have one dramatic lesson to teach us. Jesus curses this fig tree, and then he turns over some tables, and then he comes back to the fig tree to teach his disciples what it’s all about.

So let’s read Mark 11:12–25, and I’ll ask you to stand so we can give our full attention to the Lord and His Word.

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.

And when evening came, they went out of the city.

As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank You for these words. Grant us now Your Spirit, that we may understand them and be united by faith to Your Son, for Your global glory in the church. Amen. Please be seated.

Well, as the young ones might say, Jesus was having a day. Maybe he was a little hungry, right? He couldn’t find anything to eat, and he was so upset about it that he went into the temple and turned over tables. What in the world’s going on here?

This is one of the few stories repeated in all four Gospels, and it is by far one of the more controversial events in Jesus’s ministry. Yet this is not all action — Jesus is doing a lot of teaching in these moments, in the framing of the story with the cursed fig tree, and in the central component of cleansing the temple. Both are focused on teaching us a similar lesson, and they both focus on prayer. Jesus cleanses the temple and says, “My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations.” And then Jesus tells the disciples, in front of that withered fig tree, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe in your heart that you have received it, and it will be yours.” As shocking and confusing as these stories are, we need to pay attention to what we’re told in the text is what they’re all about: the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple are stories about prayer.

Jesus curses this fig tree in dramatic fashion, and then he makes a whip and turns over tables — all in service of teaching his disciples a lesson on prayer. So our big idea today is this: prayer is the key for Great Commission–minded churches.

There are four lessons on prayer packed into this passage. The first two are about the context of prayer. The third lesson is on the reason for prayer, and the fourth is the content of prayer — two contexts, one reason, and one content. As we unpack these verses, I hope you’ll see that this text is leading us to pray for all nations. Prayer has everything to do with God’s design for the church, and what we are praying for has everything to do with the mission He has given us. This is why the church exists. The image of the fig tree and the overturned money tables illuminates God’s purpose for the church.

The first of our four lessons on prayer is one of the contexts of prayer. Number one: we pray with zeal for God’s house.

Prayer, first and foremost, is an act of dwelling with God — enjoying His presence, communing with Him, exercising that great blessing of being united to Him through faith in Christ. The whole of Jesus’s ministry is focused on Jerusalem and the temple there, and he’s walking in that direction in our story. Jesus was found in the temple, his Father’s house, even when he was only twelve, and he points to himself when he says, “Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days.”

Our passage says: And they came to Jerusalem, and he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple. And he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

Jesus obviously cares a lot about the temple, and so should we. There is a pure and right worship of God, where we enjoy His presence — and if there’s one thing this world gets wrong, especially fake Christianity, it’s the worship of God.

Moreover, this is not just a primary focus of Jesus’s ministry — it’s a major theme throughout all of Scripture. Jesus gets his emphasis on the temple because that’s what the Old Testament emphasizes. The Garden of Eden was the place where man walked with God, and ever since his exile east of Eden, he’s been longing to get back into that presence. The Israelites are called out of Egypt into worship and fellowship with God, and He calls them to a place, a land, where He would make Himself known to them. The first instructions they’re given after entering into a covenant on Mount Sinai are for how to construct and care for the tabernacle. That’s the reason they’re entering the Promised Land: so that they can establish a permanent temple, because God would establish the one place on earth where He was to be worshiped.

King David was right to want to make a house for God — yet his son would be the one to establish the dwelling place of God with man on earth. And even after entering the land, they knew they were not yet at their final resting place with God, as they continued to observe the Feast of Tabernacles — living in tents, saying that this cursed world is not our home. We still long to be in the dwelling place of God forever in heaven; there was still yet a rest for them to enter into.

Israel, as a nation, was meant to be a light to all the nations of the earth — calling them with what you might call a centripetal force, a center-pulling force, to come to the temple, for that is where God made Himself known: come and see, and worship. The great sorrow the prophet Ezekiel expresses, as Israel is judged over their sins, is really the destruction of the temple and the glory of the Lord departing from it. And when Jesus is born, the magi from the nations are drawn by that same centripetal force, and they come to worship him, and his name is declared Immanuel — God with us. For Jesus put on flesh, and he tabernacled among us — finally, the dwelling of God with man.

And then, after Jesus’s resurrection, while the disciples are asking him if he would now restore the kingdom, Jesus does the most shocking thing of all: he leaves them. They’re left scratching their heads a little bit. He tells them he would send them his Spirit, and he would dwell in their hearts, so that where two or three are gathered in his name, he would be there among them. And the great directional change that occurs in the New Testament is that Jesus commands us no longer to say “come and see” — now we are commanded to go and tell, such that unbelievers who enter the fellowship of churches all over the world would hear the preaching of God’s Word, fall on their faces, and declare that God is in their midst.

The very nature and structure of the local church is designed to be mobile, to be transplantable — no longer a centripetal force calling people to the one place where God is worshiped, but now a centrifugal force, going outward into all the world, so that God would be worshiped in the farthest corners of the earth. In the New Testament, a zeal for God’s house means a zeal for the local church, where God is rightly worshiped. And today, the church is supposed to be known as a house of prayer.

When you come into the presence of God, what are you supposed to do? You’re supposed to pray. That’s what communing with God looks like. When you come into God’s house, you talk to Him. If I were to invite you over to my house, I’d want to talk to you — it would be really weird if you just ignored me the whole time you were there. It’s one of those essentials of the church. Acts 2:42: “they devoted themselves to the prayers.” And the lesson we need to learn about prayer is that we too should have a zeal for God’s house.

Now, we do not believe there’s something mystical about the walls of the church building that makes God’s presence there, but we do believe there’s something amazing about the church as the people of God gathered in Jesus’s name. So I ask you: do you have a zeal for God’s house? Do you have a zeal for church? Do you long to worship God and pray to Him with God’s people? Furthermore, does prayer mark your church? How well attended are your prayer meetings? The church is the context of prayer — praying together with God’s people is important.

So that’s the first context of prayer, our zeal for God’s house. But this is only half of the context of our prayers. The second lesson on prayer is our second context: we pray with all nations in mind.

This is the scope of the Great Commission I talked about at the beginning. Jesus does not simply describe the temple, God’s house, as a house of prayer — He says it’s a house of prayer for all nations. This is why we need to understand the specific place where Jesus was overturning those tables. You see, they were in the outer court, often called the Court of the Gentiles. And Jesus is upset because people would set up shop there so that the Jews who were coming to worship God, going into the inner court, could have sacrifices to offer — poor people could buy a couple of pigeons, while the wealthy could afford sheep or goats or something bigger. But the effect of this worship market is that it crowded out the space that was supposed to be designed for the Gentiles to worship God. The Gentiles were not allowed into the inner court, so they had this outer court where they could pray to God and worship.

The sin of the Jews is that they were self-focused. They did not make any space for the Gentiles to pray to God. The sin of the Jews was not just that they rejected their Messiah, but that they rejected the idea that their Messiah was for anyone other than themselves. They claimed this exclusive privilege as the children of Abraham. This is the sin of the prophet Jonah, who hated the fact that God would have compassion on his mortal enemies, the Ninevites. God has compassion on all nations, for He is the God of all peoples, not just the Jews. And the Jews did not grasp that the true people of God are those who are children of Abraham in their hearts — children of the promise, and not merely of the flesh. After all, the promise to Abraham is that all nations of the earth would be blessed through his offspring.

And yet again, we’re forced to wrestle with: why did God choose just one nation? Why did He establish an inner court and an outer court? Why did He choose this one nation, and from that nation bring blessing to all the nations of the earth? The reality is that God did keep the Jews separate from the other nations. The primary purpose of that is that God was pointing to the exclusivity of Jesus Christ — He was pointing to the purity of the lineage of that promised offspring who would come from Abraham’s line.

One of the best ways to understand the promise to Abraham is to remember the context in which it’s given. The context of Genesis 12 is Genesis 11 — the table of nations and the Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel is this low point for all humanity in the book of Genesis; it represents mankind’s united rebellion against God, and the curse of that sin is the division of nations, separated by many languages. But at Pentecost, after the resurrection of Christ, we see the first reversal of Babel — we see unity in Christ across historic divisions that once separated us. This is the vision of the church: unity in Christ. The gospel breaks down dividing walls of hostility.

The temple teaches us God’s purpose for the church, and the church is better — the church is better because there is no more outer court. Those divisions that once kept Gentiles out have been removed. But if we’re not careful, we will be just like the Jews, whose field of vision was only on people just like themselves. The scope of the gospel is meant to be on all people. But if we separate ourselves by our languages and our ethnic tribes, then we are practically denying the gospel, and we’re no better than the money-changers who were in the outer court.

The church has a structure that contrasts with the nation of Israel — the church is meant for all people who would have faith in Christ. So as we put points one and two together: the church is a house of prayer, and it is for all people. The church is the gathering of both Jews and Gentiles into one body, the body of Christ. That’s the context of prayer.

What’s so amazing about the gospel and the new covenant in Jesus is that all people can come and worship God together. Those divisions and that hatred, that separation of one people from another, is not true in the church — or at least it should not be. What a privilege we have, that God has made peace in the body of Jesus Christ. And I think we take it for granted sometimes — how easy an access we have to God, especially because the vast majority of us are Gentiles. We have such easy access to God. Our Father in heaven bids all people to come and pray, and He bids us to pray in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world. What a blessing we have, that Christ has brought us near to God in prayer — and what a blessing it is that Christ has brought us near to one another in prayer as well. And so the Great Commission is the call to bring that blessing of easy access to God near to all people everywhere. Everyone can have easy access to God in prayer.

I know a pastor in China who has been in prison for the last eight years. I know of men who have lost their jobs in India because they’ve converted to Christianity. Furthermore, there are whole societies of people who have no Bibles in their languages, no gospel witnesses, and they are dying without hope, unless someone goes to them. How do we respond? We should pray. Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest field. This is the central focus of this passage — the purpose of the church and the scope of the Great Commission upon all nations. God’s house is a house of prayer for all nations. So I want to encourage you: infuse your ministries and your gatherings with news of the harvest field and prayers for the nations.

But we’re not quite done, because there are two more lessons on prayer. So far we’ve only talked about the context of prayer. Now we want to consider one reason and one content of prayer. The third lesson on prayer is the reason for prayer. Number three: we pray because God can move mountains.

After Jesus leaves the temple — what I can only imagine is a very chaotic scene — Jesus and his disciples walk past that now-shriveled fig tree, and he tells his disciples the lesson they’re supposed to learn, in verses 23 and 24:

Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

There are a couple of pitfalls in this passage. First, Jesus is not telling us to be holy excavators, praying for the relocation of large quantities of land. Second, Jesus is not telling us that God is like a divine vending machine, giving us whatever we ask — the prosperity gospel loves to abuse this verse. We’ll get to what we’re really supposed to be praying for in the next point. Third, this is not a call to just believe more, to simply have a stronger faith, as if the reason we don’t get stuff is because we have too much doubt in our hearts. No — the point is actually in that phrase at the end of verse 22: have faith in God. The reason we pray is because we have faith in God. God is the one who moves mountains, not our faith. The whole point of moving a mountain is that it’s impossible for man to do it, and just mustering up enough faith won’t do it either. We have faith in what God tells us He is going to do, because He can do it. God can do the impossible. We know it’s going to happen because God tells us it’s going to happen.

So what does this have to do with a fig tree not bearing fruit? Why does Jesus use this cursed fig tree as an opportunity to teach us a lesson about God moving mountains in prayer? The point of the fig tree is that a fig tree is supposed to have figs, and a fig tree that doesn’t bear fruit is worthless. Furthermore, this tree had all the signs of fruit — Jesus sees it from afar and sees that it has leaves, and when it’s having those leaves, it’s supposed to have fruit. So there’s a sense in which this tree is hypocritical — it was signaling that it had fruit, but it didn’t. And when Jesus comes up to it, he’s expecting to see fruit there, but it did not have it. It’s a hypocritical tree.

And the point is this: our prayers are the fruit of having faith in God. Our prayers are rooted in the life-giving truth that God is faithful, that God is all-powerful, and that God can move mountains. If we have faith in God, then we will demonstrate that faith in prayer. Prayer is the fruit of faith.

Furthermore, this connects to what just happened at the temple. Israel had all the signs of being fruitful — they’re like this tree. They had the temple worship; they even had a marketplace for all the sacrifices they were making. But those were only leaves — that wasn’t the fruit God wanted them to bear. The Jews looked like they were worshiping God, but they were just a tree with leaves and no fruit — no real fruit. And the church would do well to heed the warning of judgment for fruitlessness. It’s quite possible that we can look like we are worshiping God but not bearing the fruit of faith. Some will think they’re being obedient to God, but Jesus tells us they will be cast out as workers of lawlessness. Others will be judged on the last day, their works burned up as wood, hay, and straw.

The Jews were not focused on God’s plan for His worship — they were self-focused. They did not have the scope of their vision upon God as God over all the nations; they didn’t see God’s plan that His house would be called a house of prayer for all the nations. But if the Jews had understood the Scriptures rightly, they would have seen God’s heart for the nations. Our faith must be rooted in what God has revealed to us in His Word. If God tells us He’s going to move a mountain, then we must believe Him that He will do it. And if we ask of Him anything in accordance with His will, we should be confident it will happen, because God loves to answer our prayers. And God has told us there is a mountain that He is moving.

This, of course, begs the question: what is the impossible mountain-moving that we are supposed to be praying for? Jesus tells us the answer in our fourth lesson on prayer, which is the content of prayer: we pray for forgiveness.

Our last verse gives us the content of prayer we’ve been anticipating. Verse 25 says: And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. We pray for forgiveness — a fuller concept here might be reconciliation. There’s a similar phrasing and logic found in the Lord’s Prayer: “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Notice the order — we don’t wait for God’s forgiveness before we forgive others; it’s the other way around, which is quite interesting. We’re not entitled to God’s forgiveness — we know we don’t deserve it — but it’s the one thing we want more than anything else: to be reconciled with God. And because of that, we forgive others who have offended us, all the while recognizing that we have contributed to the divisions, that we have contributed to the curse that separates people from one another. Our sin is really not primarily against others — it’s primarily an offense against a holy God, in whose image those other people have been made. When we sin against other people whom God has made, we need God’s forgiveness.

The Apostle Paul captures the essence of ministry well in 2 Corinthians 5:14–21. As I read these verses, I want us to recognize the connection between the gospel of Jesus’s substitutionary atonement for us and then the implication for how we are to live with each other:

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Did you notice, in that particular emphasis, when he says Christ died for all, “we regard no one according to the flesh,” that God is reconciling the world to Himself? Who’s the “all” there? It’s not universalism. The “all” is Jews and Gentiles — the “all” is all of the nations of the world, people from every nation and every tribe and every tongue. And what is it that needs to be reconciled? Our divisions. We’ve separated ourselves from one another through our sin and its curse — ever since the Tower of Babel, really, even before that, we’ve been cursed in our divisions.

And the answer to that division is found in that wonderful statement of the gospel in verse 21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Those two words that make it all possible are in Him. We are united to Christ in his death and resurrection. We have caused division with our sin, and we’ve been separated from God and from one another. Yet Christ, in his resurrection, defeats the greatest division — our sin, in his death. He’s defeated our death. And as we are reconciled to God in Christ, we are reconciled with one another as well. The great mountain that needs to be moved is every last division that is separating mankind from one another and from God.

Doesn’t that seem impossible to you? That’s a huge mountain — how are we going to cross these cultures and reach people so different from us? That impossible mountain to move is our sin, and our guilt, and the shame that goes with it — mankind has put up all of these barriers to reconciliation. We make it really hard to get along with one another, don’t we? But this is what God has told us in His Word that He is doing — He is doing the impossible. Since the promise made to Abraham, and even before that, God’s plan is that He would reconcile the world to Himself, and He would reconcile mankind one to another — that He would make a new creation in Jesus, that He would make one new man where there was once two — those two being Jews and Gentiles.

And today we still have this ministry of reconciliation. The ancient dividing walls of hostility do not deter us, because Jesus has promised that he will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. That means we have confidence that we can go to the most remote places of this world, to the people who have the most hostility against each other, and they can be reconciled in Christ. Ukrainians can have fellowship with Russians. Palestinians can have fellowship with Israelis. Even Ohio State fans can have fellowship with Michigan fans. It’s true.

Global missions is first and foremost about having faith in God. So we look to His Word to know what He’s doing and what He has commanded us to do. And from beginning to end, God is reconciling the world to Himself. The local church is the only place on earth where forgiveness and reconciliation are paramount, and as such, the church goes out as ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.

So let’s set our sights on the scope of the Great Commission, praying for all people to know and worship God. And the only hope we have of moving the mountains we face in that Great Commission is that the church must be a house of prayer for all nations. This is why the first and most important action we can take to be obedient to the Great Commission is to pray. The first step we take in missions is to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest field. And I can guarantee you this: God will answer your prayers. So be warned — God wants to answer this prayer. And if you pray that God would send more workers into the harvest, do not be surprised when you see more workers arising from within your own fellowship to go to the nations.

As your church is a house of prayer for all nations, rooted in the confidence that God is sovereign over all things, that He can move mountains, we focus those prayers on forgiveness of sins and reconciliation. So where are the greatest divisions? Where are the largest mountains standing in the way of the advance of the gospel? You’ve already identified some on these boards here — huge hurdles we have to cross to reach these people. What are the ancient dividing walls of hostility that still remain, that seem impossible for man to overcome? In what ways has the scope of your vision for the Great Commission been too narrow, too limited by your own capabilities? Who do you know who needs to be reconciled to God — and does your heart break for them in prayer?

The scope of the Great Commission is upon all peoples everywhere. So we lift up our eyes to the fields, for they are white for harvest — and let us especially consider those people who do not yet have a church in their language or culture. Jesus uses these most dramatic lessons, like fig trees and overturned tables, to urge the church to pray. Jesus insists his house is to be a house of prayer for all nations.

So we pray with zeal for God’s house, and we pray with all the nations in mind. We pray because God moves mountains, and we pray for the greatest mountain of all — the reconciliation between God and man, and between one another. We pray for forgiveness.

So I pray that your church would do this: one, that you’d be welcoming to all nations in your fellowship, and two, that you’d be a church that’s praying for all the nations. And when your church prays, expect to see God move mountains. Have faith in God. He will do it.

If you brought a Bible to church, we are picking up where we left off last Lord’s Day here at Piqua Baptist. We work our way through books of the Bible a little bit at a time, and we’re working through the book of Kings. We are in 1 Kings, chapter 19. If you’re not super familiar with the Bible, if you don’t have one, there’s a Bible under one of the chairs near you. You’ll find our reading today, 1 Kings 19, on page 301 of the church Bible. We’ll work our way through the entire chapter together — it usually takes us about forty-five minutes or so to work through a text like this.

1 Kings chapter 19. Here’s the big idea this morning: when God’s work appears to have failed, trust that He is doing far more than you can see.

Let’s pray.

Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. Oh great, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God, be with us this morning as we learn from Your Word. Give us eyes that we would see Your glory and the preciousness of Your Son. Write these truths upon all of our hearts. For the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Amen.

This man stood before the God of heaven and earth. This man spoke to God. This man spoke for God. This man called the wicked king Ahab to repentance. This man prayed, and it didn’t rain for three years. This man prayed again, and it rained over the entire kingdom. This man was fed by ravens. This man raised the dead. This man faced off against 450 pagan prophets, whom he mocked and then single-handedly slaughtered one by one. This man called down fire from heaven on Mount Carmel. This man outran the king’s chariot. This man is Elijah. And this has been his ministry. It has been spectacular.

We come to 1 Kings 19, and we see this same prophet, in this same kingdom, with this same wicked king. But this time we’re on a different mountain, and this time he will have a different ministry experience. God will be silent. Elijah will be despondent. And this man, who learned to trust the Lord in the loud fire, must now learn to trust the Lord in the low whisper.

You have either been, or you are, or one day you will be, in a season like Elijah in chapter 19 — a season where you can’t see what God is doing, where God’s purpose and God’s will seem hidden, and it feels like He isn’t doing anything at all — that your plans and your prayers and your hopes have all come to nothing, and it feels like you’re stuck.

There are three things I’d like to show you about your God through His care for the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 19:

I’ll repeat these as we go along.

The first thing I’d like you to see about your God, in His care for Elijah in this chapter, is this: God provides in the wilderness — even if that wilderness is a wilderness of our own making.

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”

It’s the ninth century BC. Ahab is king in Israel. He is a wicked man, a worshiper of a demon god called Baal. He was with Elijah on Mount Carmel when he witnessed the Lord embarrass the prophets of Baal — Ahab witnessed Elijah mete out God’s judgment against them. And Ahab rushes home and tells his wife, the witch queen Jezebel, what Elijah had done. Jezebel is worse than Ahab. She hates Yahweh and the servants of Yahweh. She invokes a curse upon herself, saying, in effect, “By this time tomorrow, it’s either going to be me dead or Elijah dead.”

So Elijah confronts her to her face and calls her to repent of her sins. Is that what the Bible says? No. Verse 3 says Elijah was afraid. This is curious. Last week he risked his life; this week he’s running for his life. And by the way, he doesn’t run across town — he runs across the entire country, to Beersheba, which is about as far away from Jezebel as you can get and still be in the land of Yahweh.

Think about this with me. At the end of chapter 18, Elijah is outrunning chariots. At the beginning of chapter 19, Elijah is running for his life. In chapter 18, he’s calling down fire from heaven. In chapter 19, he’s praying for his own death. What would cause a spine of steel to turn into spaghetti? Well, few things will take the starch out of a guy like unmet expectations, like the feeling that you have spent so much of yourself to so little effect. Sure, back in chapter 18, Elijah got a confession from the people — all the people said, “Yahweh is God.” But as time went on, he found out that not all confessions are conversions, and signs and wonders do not change hearts. The heart of King Ahab remains unmoved. And Elijah is disappointed and exhausted. And in his exhaustion, he puts himself in isolation.

You could say the prophet ought to have sought out the fellowship of others. Do you remember, back in chapter 18, we learned that Elijah’s friend Obadiah had protected and provided for a hundred prophets who were in hiding? You could say Elijah should have sought out their fellowship, their counsel, asked them to pray for him. But instead, the great Elijah isolated himself in the wilderness. Now, in the Bible, sometimes the Lord leads His people into the wilderness where they have to learn to trust Him. But sometimes God’s people lead themselves into the wilderness.

Verse 4 is Elijah in the wilderness, and we have a very different picture of this man than we’ve seen so far. He’s all alone, sitting under a tree, praying for his own death. Who does that sound like? Anyone? Jonah. Jonah. Not a good look for this man who, in his own words, stood before the Lord. He prays, “I’ve had enough. Take my life, Lord. I’m no better than my ancestors.”

Some of you may resonate with a prayer like this. What good have I done? I’m no better than anyone who came before. What difference have I made? The king worships demons and sleeps with a witch. The people are no closer to God than they ever have been. I have failed. My ministry is a failure.

Church, if you ever find yourself in a similar mental state as the prophet is here, wishing for his own death — would you please reach out for help? Suicide is a serious thing, and you need to know: you are not alone. You are never alone. And you are not your own. Understand that when the Lord Jesus saved you, He purchased your soul and your body. Both belong to Him. He wanted both. He loves both. The price someone pays for something is an indication of how valuable that thing is to them, and your heavenly Father paid for your body and your soul with the price of the life of His own Son. For the Christian, suicide is never an option, and help is always available. Reach out to a pastor, and we’ll help you find help.

But listen — Elijah isn’t serious. If he really wanted to die, it’s simple: turn himself in, Jezebel’s already made a vow. Real easy. He’s tired. He’s embattled. He’s alone. And here is something you already know, but need to be reminded of: Christian, when you are tired, when you are embattled, when you are alone, your perspective is almost always wrong. You’re not good at assessing your life, or any situation, when you are tired and embattled and alone.

Let’s pick up reading in verse 5.

And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

Elijah throws himself a pity party, and who shows up — uninvited? Behold the tenderness of your God. Our boy is all screwed up. He’s become Jonah. And yet our dear Lord doesn’t come to him with a harsh rebuke, but with compassion and with provision. It’s like David prayed: “Your gentleness has made me great.” The Lord makes Elijah a meal. Life can be hard. Ministry can be disappointing. Sometimes you just need a hearty meal and a good sleep.

Notice how, when the Lord comes to Elijah, He’s in no hurry at all. He wakes him up, feeds him angel food cake or something to drink, Elijah goes back to sleep, He wakes him up, feeds him again. The Lord knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103:14). PBC, this is your God. He does not change. He’ll show up at your pity party too. He’s so gracious, so patient in all of your fussing and in your folly. He loves you at your best and no less at your worst. He’s tender with you. A bruised reed He will not break.

So Christian, when you find yourself in seasons like Elijah — weary, embattled, feeling alone, even after isolating yourself in the wilderness of your own making — your Lord will come to you. Look to Him. He’s there. He’s always been there. And He will give you rest.

Oh, but our Father will give us rest under a different tree. Our Father will give us rest under the shade of a tree called Calvary. It is there you will find true rest and the quiet you need for your restless soul. Do you remember what the Apostle Peter told the people in Jerusalem? “Repent… that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” The Bible says Jesus died to bring you to God.

If you’re not a Christian, I’m glad you came to church today. I don’t know where you’re looking for rest, but I can tell you this: you’ll find it nowhere except at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. What you need is forgiveness of sin and to be reconciled to your Creator. There you will not only find rest, but friend, you will find peace. Turn from your sin today. Trust in Jesus Christ, and you will receive the refreshment you need from the presence of your God.

Where, friends, will you find rest when you are weary? Where will you find strength when you are weak? Where will you find joy when you are embattled? There’s only one answer — at the cross. At the cross, where you first saw the light, and where the burden of your heart rolled away. Jesus cannot love you more, and Jesus will not love you less. Take your rest in Him. Feast upon the food He has placed at your head, and savor the blessings of this our great and boundless Savior, because He knows what you need for the journey ahead. He’ll give you what you need. God provides in the wilderness.

The second thing we see in this text: God is present in the cave.

And he arose and ate and drank and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God. And there he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

A little geography may help here. Beersheba — where he was in the wilderness — to Horeb is south, about 250 miles. It’s a long way. The food the Lord had provided for Elijah strengthened his body for forty days and forty nights, and he comes to a mountain called Horeb. You know what Mount Horeb is, right? It has a different name — Sinai. Fasting forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai — who does this remind us of? Moses. The Lord met Moses on this same mountain and revealed Himself to Moses in the same way He’s going to reveal Himself to Elijah.

The word of the Lord comes to Elijah and asks a question. And just so you know — anytime in Scripture when God asks a question, He’s not looking to ascertain information He doesn’t already have. His question isn’t for Him; His question is always for the person He’s asking. He says, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

What do you think the tone of this question is? Is it a rebuke? The commentators are split on this point. Some say it’s a rebuke — “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Others say this question is simply calling Elijah to take inventory of his life, to come clean — more gentle, like, “Why are we here, Elijah?” Whichever it is doesn’t change the meaning much. Personally, I favor the latter, and the reason is we need not forget the audience to whom Kings was written. Remember, this book was written to the exiles — the Jews exiled in Babylon, wondering, after the judgment of God had fallen and they had been kicked out of the land and sent into exile, “Why are we here? How did we get here?” So this question is doing a lot of work for Elijah — and for the original audience. What are you doing here, Israel?

Note the prophet’s response in verse 10. Philip Ryken, in his excellent commentary, points out that everything Elijah says in response to the Lord’s question is built on half-truths. He says, “I have been very jealous for the Lord.” Well, he might have been able to say that back in chapter 18, but so far in chapter 19, all this boy has done is run for his life, sleep under a broom tree, and eat angel food cake. “Very jealous”? Zeal for God is not why he’s at Sinai.

By the way, he says the people of Israel have all forsaken God’s covenant. All of them? It’s just a chapter ago that all of them confessed that Yahweh is God — at least some of them must have meant it. Surely, Elijah, you’re not the only faithful servant of God in the entire kingdom, are you? He says they’ve killed all the prophets, and now they’re coming for him. But what did Elijah himself learn in the first part of chapter 18? There are at least a hundred prophets of Yahweh in hiding, protected and provided for by the king’s chief of staff. They haven’t killed all the prophets. He isn’t the only one.

But this is what we do. When we’re spiritually despondent, spiritually depressed, we convince ourselves of half-truths, and we speak to ourselves in absolutes — blanket statements about how the world is. “This situation’s never going to end. Ever.” “Everyone is like this. Everyone.” “I’m the only one. The only one.” You know what this is? Self-pity. And I’m sad to say it’s a dear friend of my own. We feel sorry for ourselves, and we isolate, and then we blame others for being distant. And the prophet’s perspective is completely askew. Not everyone is trying to kill Elijah — Jezebel is, and she is formidable, but she’s not everyone. Elijah’s despondence has turned one queen into an entire nation. That’s what self-pity does. It makes us big. It makes God small. And thereby makes all our problems insurmountable — which in turn feeds self-pity. Ask me how I know.

Ryken points out another half-truth: Elijah says, “I, and I alone” — which is more than just self-pity. It reveals what the prophet thinks of himself and his own importance in the work of God. If there is to be reformation in the kingdom, if there is to be revival in the land, I’m the only one who’s going to make it happen. This is how spiritual depression and despondency unfold in our hearts — self-righteousness and self-pity mixed together, and the unhappy ingredients create an elixir of conceit. We get big; God gets small. We make expectations, we make demands, we expect certain outcomes, and when those expectations aren’t realized, the dimmer switch on our joy gets turned down. We become despondent. We become inconsolable. We throw pity parties. And when this happens, we, like Elijah, need a change in perspective — to stop staring at our own belly buttons and start staring at the risen Christ.

Does anyone remember how Elijah has described himself so far in 1 Kings? As the man who stood before the Lord. Well, he needs to stand before the Lord again. And that’s just what the Lord calls him to.

And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.

Before we get into wind and earthquake and fire, let’s pause on that phrase — “the Lord passed by.” That phrase has been attached to this mountain before, hasn’t it? Before Elijah climbed Sinai, Moses climbed Sinai, and Moses asked the Lord to see His glory. The Lord said, “You cannot see My glory and live — I’ll make My goodness pass by.” Exodus 34 says the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” That event is in the background here — God passes before Elijah as He once did to Moses, and God reveals Himself to Elijah as He once did to Moses.

There was a great wind — I don’t know how strong a wind has to be to break rock, but it’s breaking rocks, which would have been loud and terrifying. But the author of Kings says the Lord is not in the wind. Then there was an earthquake, and the mountain shook — unsettling, terrifying, the whole thing shaking and you’re on it — but the Lord is not in the earthquake. Then there was a fire, and Elijah knows fire — he’s dealt with fire before — but we’re told the Lord is not in the fire. And then there’s the sound of a low whisper — or, if you’re using the King James, “a still small voice.”

Now, this is new. Think about the ministry of Elijah — it has been full of dramatic divine interventions: droughts, miraculous provision, raising the dead, confronting prophets and kings, judgment, the spectacular. But when these things did not bring about reformation in the kingdom, at least not in the way he expected, Elijah is despondent. And Yahweh passes by him in these spectacular ways — but we’re told the Lord is not in those things. Instead, the Lord is in the still small voice, in the silence, in the low whisper. And that is what draws Elijah out of the cave.

“Why are you here, Elijah?” This is here to teach us that sometimes God’s kingdom will advance on the surface, through the spectacular, and at other times God is pleased to see His kingdom advance underneath the surface, through the power of His word. So, Piqua Baptist, when you don’t see the spectacular, don’t assume God is not working. It is impossible to gauge God’s work in pieces — it can only be seen in the whole, and the Lord doesn’t often show us the whole. More often, our Lord moves through the invisible and the inaudible.

Let’s pick up reading in verse 13.

And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

Same thing he said before. Verse 15:

And the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

It starts off with the same question from the Lord and the same answer from the prophet, word for word. But this time there’s a different response from the Lord. The first time He said, “Go stand before Me.” This time He says, “Go, return.” Turn back. There is more the Lord intends to do through the prophet Elijah.

Now, I don’t want to move on without at least making the point that God is not done with Elijah. We just learned He has 7,000 men and women who are faithful to Him in the kingdom. He has at least a hundred prophets He could use to do the work — but He still chooses to use Elijah. If you are despondent and feeling sorry for yourself, if you find yourself not responding well to adversity and setbacks, if you are isolating yourself — you need to know: God is not done with you. You just need to get back to work.

I think the best book I’ve ever read on pastoral ministry is called The Shepherd’s Life, by James Rebanks. It’s not a book about church ministry at all — in fact, Rebanks isn’t even a Christian. It’s called The Shepherd’s Life because it’s about a shepherd’s life; it’s about raising sheep. There are a couple of sentences in that book that have been so useful to me for pastoral ministry. Rebanks says there are three rules in shepherding: the first rule is, it’s about the sheep and the land; the second rule is, sometimes things don’t work out; and the third rule is, shut up and do the work. That has been so useful to me in ministry. It’s not about me — it’s about the people and the kingdom. And sometimes things don’t work out the way I think they should, and I just need to shut up and do the work.

You see what the Lord is doing with Elijah, don’t you? He’s telling Elijah, “I’m doing a thousand things that you don’t know and don’t understand. Go anoint a pagan, Hazael, over a pagan country, Syria. Go anoint Jehu over Israel. Go anoint Elisha as your successor.” God is still working in the kingdom in ways Elijah can’t see. He’s sovereign over pagan nations. He’s sovereign over His own. He’s telling the prophet, “I have this well in hand, young man.” And maybe I’m reading between the lines, but He’s telling him, “I don’t need you to accomplish My will. You think you are jealous for My glory — I am more so.” If a worshiper of Baal escapes Hazael, Jehu will take care of him. If he escapes Jehu, Elisha will take care of him. “I’ll see to it.” The Lord works through means, and the Lord has many means. The Lord has all the means.

And here we see every single one of Elijah’s half-truths come down. He’s not alone — 7,000 people in the kingdom have not bowed the knee to Baal. And this is a lesson for us: in making too much of ourselves, we build expectations about how our God ought to run His world, and when He acts differently, or moves at a different pace than we would like, we become despondent. We become like those disciples on the road to Emmaus, whose unmet expectations kept them from seeing the risen Christ: “We had hoped that You would be the one to redeem Israel” — yet He’s standing right next to them, and they can’t see Him.

So Yahweh came to Elijah in the same way He came to Moses. And friends, it’s the same way He’s going to come to you. He will come in gentleness. He will come in compassion. But He will come to change your perspective. There is nowhere you can go apart from His Holy Spirit. Church, in the dark, find your Father’s hand and take hold. The dark is not dark to Him. Remember what the psalmist said in Psalm 23 — that he would not fear walking through the valley of the shadow of death. You know why? Because “You are with me.” You don’t have to be afraid walking through the valley of the shadow of death, because Jesus went there first. Jesus went to death first and came back. He knows the way. He’ll lead you through.

When you can’t see what God is doing, know that God loves you. Know that He’s doing a thousand things you can’t see — things you wouldn’t understand even if you could see them. The great nineteenth-century preacher Charles Spurgeon put it as only Spurgeon could put it: “God is too good to be unkind, and He is too wise to be mistaken, and when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.”

Though Elijah is a mess, the Lord didn’t give up on him. He has a purpose yet for this prophet, and that brings us to our last point, which will go very quickly: God has a purpose in the field.

So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” And he said to him, “Go back again, for what have I done to you?” And he returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him.

So we’re introduced to the prophet Elisha. We don’t know much about him except what we’re told here. He’s plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, which seems to suggest his family was probably pretty wealthy — the equivalent, in a modern farm, of requiring twelve tractors to do twelve plows. Elijah passes by him — an interesting phrase, the same word from back in verse 11 — and casts his cloak on him, which is a designation that he’s choosing this man to be his successor, after he goes to be with the Lord. He’s telling Elisha what the Lord Jesus would later tell the disciples, about a thousand years later: “Come, follow Me.” And Elisha does what the disciples did — he sells the farm, slaughters the oxen, cooks the meat over the yokes, gives it to the people, and follows the prophet.

God’s purpose will go forward — and it will go forward less through Elijah and more through Elisha. Elijah’s ministry will become less about calling down fire and more about training up another. And yet, though there is no fire in this part of his ministry, his God is no less present in it — no less magnificent or sovereign in it. God is still working. He still has a purpose in the field.

This chapter started with Elijah running, and it ends with Elijah returning. It started with Elijah alone, and it ends with Elijah together with another. The Lord has asked him, twice, “What are you doing here?” And in the middle of the chapter comes the main point: the Lord working in the low whisper. Elijah trusted the Lord in the loud fire; now he must trust his Lord in the low whisper.

We could ask ourselves this question this morning, PBC: what are you doing here? Have you been looking to God to show up in a whirlwind, in an earthquake, in a fire — in the spectacular? Have you been disappointed by how the Lord has worked in your life, how He has called you to trust Him in thin silence, in a low whisper, in the ordinary? Well, if so, friends, this is what the Lord is calling you to: to trust Him, to rest yourself at His cross, to feast yourself upon His Word, and to invest yourself in the spiritual well-being of another.

So, you’ve blown it. We all have. Lift up your eyes and see your Savior. Trust that your God is doing a thousand things that you can’t see and wouldn’t understand even if you could. Know that He has not given up on you — that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion, and that He is doing more, far more, than you could ask or even imagine, and that all things will work together for your good. Trust this. Believe this.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank You for 1 Kings 19 and for Your precious Word. Write its truth upon our hearts, and let it bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name.

Here at Piqua Baptist Church, we work our way through books of the Bible a little bit at a time. We’re in a series through the book of Kings, which is split into two books, 1 and 2 Kings. If you don’t have a Bible, or you’re not really sure where Kings is in the Bible, grab one of the black Bibles from underneath one of the chairs in front of you, and you’ll find our passage today, 1 Kings 18, on page 299 of the church Bible. Page 299. We’re going to be working through the entire chapter, 1 Kings 18 — lots of Bible to read.

Let me go ahead and pray for us, and then we’ll jump right in.

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God who is Father over all and through all and in all. And Lord, we bow ourselves before You this morning, acknowledging, with some level of humility, that we cannot do for ourselves what is needful this morning. We need to hear Your Word. And by hearing Your Word, we need to be convicted of our sin, drawn to Your Son, empowered by Your Spirit to accomplish Your mission. So I ask, O Lord, that You would give us eyes to see the glories of God in this text, ears to hear the message of Christ in this text. Be with us. Grant us Your Spirit. For the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Amen.

The central claim I’ll be making in this sermon this morning is this: because the Lord alone is God, we must turn away from every rival and follow Christ.

Anyone who knows a little bit about boxing has heard the name “Smokin’ Joe” Frazier. Joe Frazier, along with Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, was one of the premier heavyweight boxers of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Fewer people are familiar with his son, Marvis Frazier — and there’s a reason for that.

In the middle of the 1980s, Marvis Frazier was around twenty-five years old and had a 16–1 professional boxing record. Given his lineage, the boxing world had high expectations for this young man. But all of that would change when Marvis Frazier met a twenty-year-old phenom by the name of Michael Gerard Tyson. At that time, Tyson was 24–0, but he hadn’t really fought anyone of note, and a match with a serious heavyweight contender would be just the thing to introduce the world to Mike Tyson.

That match took place in late July 1986. The bell rang, and Tyson struck almost immediately with an uppercut, drove his opponent backward, and trapped him. Tyson landed one more uppercut, and that’s all it took. Frazier collapsed, the referee started a count, and the fight was called. It was over in thirty seconds. Marvis Frazier never even landed a punch. Tyson didn’t just answer questions that day — he erased them entirely.

In the passage before us this morning, the prophet Elijah sets up a contest between the one true God, Yahweh, and a false god called Baal. Now, some have called this a “showdown,” but I don’t think it is, because to have a showdown, you need to show up. And Baal never showed up. He never speaks. He never saves. He never protects. He never provides. Baal does nothing, because Baal is nothing — a false god made of deadwood and cold stone and shiny bronze. And the contest between the two is over in less than thirty seconds.

We’ll break this chapter down into four parts, and we’ll work through each one together:

I’ll repeat them as we go along, if you’re taking notes and are interested in such things. Let’s get to work.

After many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, “Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth.” So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab.

Here’s the story behind the fight. It’s around the year 850 BC. There’s been a rift — the people of God have been split into two kingdoms, each with its own king. The kingdom in the north is simply called Israel; the kingdom in the south is called Judah. Our fight takes place in the north. In Israel, the king’s name is Ahab, and Ahab is a wicked king. He has led the people of God away from the worship of Yahweh and into the worship of a pagan deity called Baal.

Now, this is the setup for a contest between the two, so let’s meet our contenders. Baal is a make-believe Canaanite storm god who, in response to man’s oblations, sends rain upon the earth — except when he can’t, except when he’s detained or can’t be bothered, in which case there’s a drought. Yahweh is the one true God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, who is all-powerful and sovereign over all men and all things. He had chosen a people for Himself and delivered them from slavery, and gave them a land upon which they were to live and serve Him and be a light to all the nations of the world.

Yahweh promised His people that if they would keep His commandments, He would send rain upon the land and it would prosper. But if they turned aside from the commandments of the Lord and worshiped pretend gods like Baal, then He would shut up the heavens and there would be no rain on the land. Well, that’s exactly what has happened. Back in chapter 17, in response to Ahab and the people of Israel worshiping Baal, Elijah the prophet comes out of nowhere with a word from the Lord for the king of Israel and says, “There shall be neither dew nor rain for three years, at least, until I say.” And for three years it did not rain, and the land suffered a severe famine.

Well, wicked kings don’t like bearers of bad news, and so Elijah the prophet is forced into hiding. Ahab and his wicked wife Jezebel have been searching for him for three years. The Lord has protected him and provided for him for three years. And then, in chapter 18 verse 1, the word of the Lord comes to Elijah and says, “Now it’s time to go. Reveal yourself to the wicked king Ahab and tell him: it’s about to rain.” Knowing the danger, Elijah packs up his bags and goes to meet Ahab. Let’s keep reading, second half of verse 2.

Now the famine was severe in Samaria. And Ahab called Obadiah, who was over the household. (Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly, and when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water.) And Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land to all the springs of water and to all the valleys. Perhaps we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive, and not lose some of the animals.” So they divided the land between them to pass through it. Ahab went in one direction by himself, and Obadiah went in another direction by himself.

And as Obadiah was on the way, behold, Elijah met him. And Obadiah recognized him and fell on his face and said, “Is it you, my lord Elijah?” And he answered him, “It is I. Go, tell your lord, ‘Behold, Elijah is here.'” And he said, “How have I sinned, that you would give your servant into the hand of Ahab, to kill me? As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my lord has not sent to seek you. And when they would say, ‘He is not here,’ he would take an oath of the kingdom or nation, that they had not found you. And now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord, “Behold, Elijah is here.”‘ And as soon as I have gone from you, the Spirit of the Lord will carry you I know not where. And so, when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me, although I your servant have feared the Lord from my youth. Has it not been told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, how I hid a hundred men of the Lord’s prophets by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water? And now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord, “Behold, Elijah is here,”‘ and he will kill me.” Elijah said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.” So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah.

Now, this is not the Obadiah who is the prophet of the Lord and wrote a book in the Bible. This Obadiah is sort of the king’s chief of staff — he’s in charge of the king’s household, in charge of the king’s kitchen. We’re told that Obadiah fears the Lord greatly, risking his own life. He has a hundred of the Lord’s prophets hidden, and he feeds them secretly with food and water. It’s very likely he used the king’s own stores to keep alive the very men the king was trying to kill. In this way, Obadiah reminds us of the midwives who hid the Hebrew babies from Pharaoh. He reminds us of the way Rahab hid the spies in Jericho. He even reminds us of the ten Booms, who hid Jews during World War II.

Obadiah, servant of the king, acted shrewdly under his wicked ruler. But when the time comes to let the king know that he’s met Elijah, Obadiah is nervous, and for good reason. Remember, he told the prophet, “There’s nowhere the king has not sought to find you.” And what happens if he goes to the king and says “Elijah is coming to meet you,” and Elijah doesn’t show up because the Spirit of the Lord carries him away — which, I guess, happened at times? He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him. But Obadiah keeps his promise to Elijah, and Elijah keeps his promise to Obadiah, and the prophet obeys the Lord and stands face to face with the king who’s been trying to murder him for three years.

Let’s begin reading verse 17.

When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

King Ahab holds Elijah personally responsible for the judgment of God on Ahab’s own sin — he calls him “the troubler of Israel.” Well, this is often what happens to God’s people during times of God’s judgment. Do you remember when the Lord Jesus told His disciples, “The world will hate you because of Me” (John 15)? “If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you.” But Elijah knows his God. Elijah is fearless. Elijah speaks truth to power and says, in effect, “You have troubled Israel with your idolatry. You are the troubler of Israel. You have brought this upon yourself and upon this kingdom.”

And so Elijah sets up the stage for fight night: gather all of Israel at Mount Carmel, gather 450 prophets of Baal, 400 prophets of Asherah — Asherah being just another plastic figurine of Jezebel’s comic-book religion, the goddess of fertility. So that’s the setup: 850 prophets to one. And it won’t even be close.

Now we get to the staredown — it’s like the weigh-in the night before the fight, where the two contenders are facing one another. Yahweh vs. Baal posters are hung up all around town.

So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word.

Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal’s prophets are 450 men. Let two bulls be given us, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood, and put no fire to it. And you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.” And all the people answered, “It is well spoken.”

Note that the author says Elijah “came near” to the people. This phrase — “came near” — appears several times in this passage. It is a kindness when the Lord comes near to expose our sin. The people of God are in famine due to their sin, and God in heaven may have let them starve — but instead, God in heaven comes near.

Friends, it is a kindness when a brother or sister in the Lord, or a pastor, comes near to disclose sin in our lives. Let us all take the posture of the psalmist David when he sang, “Let a righteous man strike me — it is a kindness; let him rebuke me — it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it” (Psalm 141:5). When a brother or sister in the Lord, when a pastor, comes to us to expose our sin, it is not a holier-than-thou self-righteousness on display, friend — it is love. It is love. Hebrews 3 tells us to exhort one another so that no one will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Christian, sin is deceptive, hidden, often, and very serious. The Bible says that God gives elders — pastors — to the church who are keeping watch over their souls. And so when we notice that a member has been missing church regularly, or has disengaged from the fellowship of the body, we reach out. We call, we text, and sometimes we don’t get a response. That might sound weird to you, but it happens — it happened to me twice last week. And so sometimes we have to send a letter. Missing church doesn’t always mean someone is unhealthy or in spiritual danger, but I will say that almost always, the first sign that someone is, is that they miss church regularly. So we reach out because we love them, because we need them, because they need us.

Israel is engaged in the worship of false gods, suffering under the consequences of their sin, giving Baal the place that only Yahweh deserved. So He shut up the heavens, and God withheld His blessing, and the people were suffering. God is not doing this out of spite, but to shake them up, to wake them up. The famine is a fire alarm. That is why Elijah comes near.

Verse 21 is the whole point of this chapter, by the way: “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If Yahweh is God, follow Him. But if Baal, then follow him.” Notice: two options. You either worship God, or you’re an idolater. There is room for only one on the throne of the heart of man. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” That was true in Elijah’s day. That was true in Jesus’ day. That is true in our day. Through Holy Scripture, this same thing is spoken to us: if Yahweh is God, follow Him.

Who or what you are looking to for the proverbial rain is your god. Who you are looking to for blessing, for comfort, for approval, for safety, for power — that is your functional god. And if it is not the one true God, friend, you are an idolater. Now, you may not bow down to statues, but that doesn’t make you any less pagan.

Notice the tragic response of the people: “The people did not answer him a word.” Friends, the time is long past for no answer. Who is your God? Call upon His name. If Yahweh is God, follow Him. No more limping between opinions. The people were silent. Why? Well — it’s 850 prophets and the king, against one guy in a camel-hair suit. People are attracted to power, and Baal has all the power — or so they think. Their silence is about to be broken.

Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your god, but put no fire to it.” And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made. And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention.

From morning until noon, 450 prophets call upon the name of Baal. But — and this is just good writing — there’s no voice. No one answered. We become what we worship. Baal doesn’t speak. Baal doesn’t answer. The people don’t speak. The people don’t answer. The prophets limped around the altar; the people are limping between opinions. Baal is no more able to answer with fire than he has been able to answer with rain for the last three years. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t save. He doesn’t protect. He doesn’t provide. He does nothing. He is nothing — deadwood, cold stone, shiny bronze. Baal is no more able to save Israel than Captain America is able to save you. He’s a comic-book figure. All we have from Baal is a dead bull on dry wood and 450 fools wailing at an empty sky.

And sometime around noon — probably because he was annoyed and impatient — the prophet Elijah begins to mock: come on, guys, cry louder. Maybe he’s charging his hearing aids, he can’t hear you. Maybe he’s busy on the toilet — that’s literally what it means. Maybe he’s fallen asleep. The prophets of Baal can’t squeeze even a single spark out of their dead god, and they assume it’s their fault. Oh, it couldn’t be that their god is make-believe, no way — we’ve got to show him we’re serious, let’s cut ourselves, let’s let the blood gush out, let him know we’re real serious.

That’s the way of every idol. Ask any addict — the idol promises and the idol fails, and the idol demands more. All false religions do the same thing: they make their promises, they don’t deliver, and then they blame the worshiper. You didn’t do enough. You didn’t give enough. It’s more, more, more. And every false religion suffers the same consequence — unanswered prayer, undelivered promises.

Verse 29, I’ll be honest, saddens me, because in my line of business I see this often, and its effect: “There was no voice. No one answered. No one paid attention.” All the offering, all the wailing, all the blood — wasted. What a contrast from what we read in Exodus chapter 2: the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help, and their cry came up to God, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant, and God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. Not Baal — he can’t hear, he can’t remember, he can’t see, he doesn’t know. PBC, listen: when you cry out to the Lord your God, He hears. He remembers. He sees. He knows. God pays attention.

Well, the 450 prophets finish their unholy hullabaloo, and there’s nothing from the storm god stuck on his pot. Baal never showed up. And then one greater than Mike Tyson enters the ring. Let’s pick up reading verse 30.

Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” (There’s our phrase again.) And all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down. Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, “Israel shall be your name,” and with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two seahs of seed. And he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, “Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” And he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time. And he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. And the water ran around the altar, and filled the trench also with water.

And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.” And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there.

See why so many people love this chapter? Our boy Elijah’s hardcore.

A few things I want you to see from this section. Elijah tells the people to come near — this is an invitation from the Lord. Yes, they have been guilty of false worship. Yes, they have abandoned true worship of Yahweh. But God is merciful. No matter who you are, no matter what you have done, there is still time to turn to the Lord. If you have turned from God, if you have let your faith grow cold, return to the Lord today. He is merciful. He is gracious.

The people come near. Elijah builds an altar of twelve stones. Why twelve stones? The text tells us: because it represents the twelve tribes of Israel. Elijah means to make a connection between the altar and the people of God. He builds a trench around the altar, cuts the bull and lays it with the wood, then tells the people, “Fill up four big jars of water and pour it out on the offering and on the wood” — which they do. And then, “Do it again” — which they do. And, “Do it again.” This whole thing is soaked. Water fills up the trench around the altar.

And then Elijah prays. Look again at verses 36 and 37 — Elijah’s prayer. You know what’s remarkable about that prayer? It’s not really remarkable at all. It’s two sentences in English. Elijah prays for thirty seconds. The priests of Baal wailed for hours, limping, cutting themselves. Elijah prays two sentences, and — whoosh — fire comes out of heaven, consumes the offering, consumes the wood, consumes the stone and the dust, and licks up the water in the trench. How hot does fire have to be to consume stone? Surely the heat of such a thing was felt far and wide.

I like what the commentator Philip Ryken wrote on this passage: he said we are thus reminded that God is His own proof — only God can prove His own existence. Elijah did not really prove God at all; God proved Himself. So yes, PBC, give an answer for the hope that is in you — but understand that the burden of proof that God exists is not on you. God will prove Himself.

When the people see this, they fall on their faces, no longer silent: “Yahweh, He is God,” they say. “Yahweh, He is God.” A fire falls on the altar of sacrifice, and idol worshipers are transformed into God worshipers. No more limping between opinions. Yahweh is God.

Do you see what happens here? Put the pieces together. The man of God builds an altar to the Lord — twelve stones standing in the place of twelve tribes — and fire from heaven, a symbol of God’s judgment, consumes the sacrifice and the altar completely. And by seeing God’s judgment poured out, God turns the hearts of sinners back to Himself. And then, next, He sends rain upon the land.

Do you see, Christian? This is your story. The man of God, Jesus Christ, came. He stood in your place. He represented you. And the fire of God, the judgment of God, fell on Him — on His cross, on His altar — and He died. Christ suffered the penalty of your sin, rose from the dead, and God turned your heart back. God the Father accepted the offering of God the Son, and then God poured out His Spirit and the blessing of obedience upon the people. Sinner, there is still time for you — turn from your sin, turn to the Lord this morning. The judgment of God for sinners has been poured out on the Son of God. When you repent of your sin and turn to Jesus Christ in faith, you’ll be forgiven of your sin and granted eternal life. The blessing of God is reserved for the obedient — and that blessing is poured out on you, not because you have been obedient, but because by faith you’ve been united to Him who was obedient.

How long will you go limping between opinions? Decide today. If Yahweh is God, follow Him. But sinner, let me be honest with you: if you don’t turn to God, there will be a reckoning. All who reject God’s offer of grace will fall under the judgment of God for their sin. That was the case for the prophets in Israel, and that is the case for all, even today.

Elijah’s slaughter of the prophets of Baal is ghastly, but Elijah is justified in doing so by the law of God. Under the covenant God had made with Israel, all false prophets were to be put to death, and no one in the country was doing it — so Elijah does it himself. Now we’re under the new covenant, and under the new covenant things are different. But the penalty of false worship is the same. Idolatry is as serious today as it was back then. Sinner, fear God. Repent of your sin. Believe in Jesus Christ.

So the showdown wasn’t much of a showdown at all — it was pretty well over before it started. And our passage today ends with a victory dance. This is where we’ll end our time together this morning. Verse 41.

And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing of rain.” So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel, and he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” And he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go again,” seven times. And at the seventh time he said, “Behold, a little cloud like a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.'” And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.

So here we see God hears the prayers of His people. God answers the prayers of His people because God cares for His people. Elijah prays; God sends the rain. By fire, hearts were turned. By rain, life was preserved.

The chapter ends by noting that the hand of the Lord is on Elijah, and — this guy outruns Ahab, who’s in a chariot, on his way to a town called Jezreel. It’s kind of funny — what is this about? Well, in those days, when a king would travel, his servants would go before him. Elijah is showing Ahab that he is, yes, a prophet of the Lord, but he’s also a servant of the king of Israel. He’s not trying to bring down the king — he’s trying to call the king to repent. This is an opportunity for Ahab to repent, to lead God’s people back to right worship of God, to restore their purpose.

It’s just — I think — an important point. After this great victory that Elijah was a part of, he shows himself a servant. This is what Christians do. This is what Christian victory looks like. It’s not gloating. It’s not even the slaughter. It’s service. Our win is that we preach Christ and present ourselves as servants for His sake.

The point of 1 Kings 18 isn’t first, “go be like Elijah — go be bold, go be obedient.” The point isn’t, “be like Obadiah — be shrewd, be devoted, take risks.” The point of 1 Kings 18 is: look to the altar of God. We aren’t Elijah. We aren’t Obadiah. We are the people of Israel — limping between opinions, attracted to power, giving ourselves over to false gods. Like Israel, we need to see the fire upon the altar of God, upon the cross of Jesus Christ. We need to see what God has done for us there. And by sight of that divine glory, we too will be changed. And then, by that transformation, we too will declare God is God, and we will live like it.

Brothers, look to the cross. See what Christ has done for you there. No more limping between opinions. Declare that Yahweh is God, and follow Christ. Lead your family. Your wife is looking to you — love her, nourish her, cherish her, pray for her, study the Bible with her. Disciple your children. Prioritize church attendance. Seek the fellowship of the saints. Take your membership seriously. Evangelize the lost. Be a man.

Sisters, look to the cross. See what Christ has done for you there. No more limping between opinions. Declare that Yahweh is God, and follow Christ. Submit to your husband. Respect your husband. Pray for your husband. Use your words to encourage and build up, not to criticize and cut down. Be a woman of the Word. Memorize Scripture. Teach Scripture to your children and to your grandchildren. Make your home a refuge for the weary, a warm and welcoming place for both friends and for strangers. Refuse to grumble and to gossip. Fold other women into your life — older women training younger women, younger women showing up and being teachable.

All of us — no more limping between opinions. If the Lord is God, let’s follow Him. Let’s pray for revival. Let’s join a church. Let’s seek the welfare of our city. Let’s live below our means and give to see the gospel advance. Let’s show up at prayer meetings. Let’s encourage one another. Let’s admonish one another. Let’s bear one another’s burdens. We have seen the fire. We have beheld the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. There is no more limping. Let us all follow Christ.

Let’s pray. Our Father, we thank You for showing up and proving Yourself, for the way in which You have revealed Yourself — the fire of Your judgment on Your Son, which has moved our hearts back to You. We pray, O Lord, here this morning, for those whose hearts will not be turned, who have heard these words today and whose heart is stubborn — Lord, please soften hard hearts. Bring salvation as only You can. For the glory of God in Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

If you brought a Bible to church, let me encourage you to find 1 Kings in your Bible — 1 Kings. Since it is Kids in Service Sunday this morning, let me just encourage the young ones, if you haven’t already, to pick up one of these — they’re hanging up in the foyer. This is going to be a worship guide that walks the young ones through the number of things we’ll be doing in the sermon here today.

Here at Piqua Baptist, we work our way through books of the Bible, and today we are in Kings — 1 Kings, chapter 17. If you don’t have a Bible, we have a handful of Bibles under the chairs in front of you, so hopefully there’s one nearby if you don’t really know where 1 Kings is, because it’s kind of an unusual book. You’ll find 1 Kings 17 on page 299 of the church Bible. We’ll also have the text on the screen so you can follow along with us.

I had to call an audible this morning. Those of you who read the worship guide know we were planning to do chapters 17 and 18. But as I got into things this week, I realized I’d rather camp out in chapter 17 for the entire time we have together and save chapter 18 for next week. 1 Kings 18 is one of those chapters in your Bible that everyone loves — me included. It’s going to be a good one. Come back next week, Lord willing. Only chapter 17 this morning.

Let me go ahead and pray, and then we’ll jump right in.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to Your great mercy, You’ve set Your love on us. You’ve caused us to be born again to a living hope, to an imperishable inheritance, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for us, who by Your power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. God, open our eyes that we would behold wondrous things from Your Word. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Here’s the central claim I’ll seek to make from 1 Kings 17 today: the living God brings life. You can trust Him and His Word when everything else around you is dying.

Imagine, as much as you’re able, a Jewish father in the sixth century BC, in exile in Babylon, putting his seven-year-old son to bed. Much of who he is — as a man, as a father, as a Jew — is tied to his lineage, to his people, to his God. Much of what it means to be a Jew is inseparable from the land that Yahweh had given to his ancestors — a land that is a distant memory to him and little more than a myth to his son.

Imagine him telling his son bedtime stories — stories of his fathers and grandfathers, doing as all good fathers do: tying his child’s identity to the history of his people. Just as important, using those stories to instruct his son, to warn him of the dangers of disobeying God. Imagine him saying to his son: “Yahweh gave our fathers the land, and a unique and wonderful purpose on earth. But our fathers forsook the Lord and sought after other gods — false gods that don’t speak, that can’t save, that can’t provide. And Yahweh contended with our fathers for decades, showing mercy, exposing the danger of their ways. But our fathers would not listen.”

Part of that imaginary father’s story to his son is the passage we’ll be studying this morning.

So far in our study of Kings, the first sixteen chapters have covered about a hundred years of Israel’s history. Here, Kings slows the narrative down. We’ve covered the reigns of eleven different kings — one who showed promise, and ten who sent the aircraft into a tailspin. It is a dark time in the history of God’s people.

The latest king is a king called Ahab, and the Bible says he’s the worst of them all. He married a wicked woman called Jezebel, a pagan priestess. Together they abandoned the worship of Yahweh and established a national religion to the Canaanite demon Baal. Now, you may have heard “Baal” pronounced “Bay-al,” but that’s because you were trained by hillbillies — it’s pronounced “Bah-al.” Not only have Ahab and Jezebel set up a false religion across the kingdom, Jezebel in particular has slaughtered the prophets of Yahweh. Anyone who spoke God’s word to God’s people was a target in her bloody campaign, and anyone who has survived it is in hiding.

It is into this dark time that the Lord sends the prophet Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead. You might be wondering, where in the world is Tishbe? And that’s the point — Elijah comes out of nowhere. Later we learn Elijah wore a garment of hair and a leather belt around his waist — so maybe Elijah was a hillbilly too. Maybe he called him “Bay-al.” Sorry for making fun of you. No, I’m not.

A few things we learn about the character and nature of God from our passage this morning. The first is this:

Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” And the word of the Lord came to him: “Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” So he went and did according to the word of the Lord. He went and lived by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

Elijah is sent to King Ahab with a word of judgment. Every word in verse one is significant — down to Elijah’s own name. The name Elijah means “Yahweh is my God.” Elijah comes and opens up the truth to King Ahab: Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives. That becomes thematic in the ministry of the prophet Elijah — God is a living God. Ahab’s god, Baal, is about as alive as the bronze and stone and stump from which he was carved. He is dead. He can’t speak. He can’t save. He can’t provide. That becomes a theme in the ministry of the prophet Elijah.

Now, the Canaanites worshiped many Baals — everyone seemed to have their own flavor — but one consistent feature of all the different Baals is that he was a storm god. In the myth, Baal defeated the sea god and built a palace in the heavens from which he would pour out rain on the earth. But every year, the god of death comes and defeats poor Baal and takes him to the underworld — which is why we experience the dry season, of course. And then every year, Baal’s big sister has to come and save poor Baal from death so that he returns to his palace, and then the rains return in the fall. Of course.

So it makes sense as the point of God’s judgment against Ahab and Israel: there shall be neither dew nor rain until I say. There is one true and living God, and He does not die, and He does not need saving. He is God — in the rain and in the shine, as Pastor Matt said.

Through Moses, God had told His people: if you obey My commandments, if you love Me with all your heart, I will give you rain in season; but if you turn aside and serve other gods, I will shut up the heavens and there will be no rain (Deuteronomy 11:13–17). So this prophecy from Elijah to Ahab, to Israel, has a very fine point. It is the fulfillment of a prophecy. There is one true God, and all who trust in Him are saved and supplied against all odds. But all who turn from this one God are judged and perish.

This fact about the character and nature of God as provider is modeled for us in the life of Elijah. The author shows us how the Lord provides for the prophet. This week we’ll see how the Lord provides in Elijah’s private ministry; Lord willing, next week we’ll see how the Lord provides in his public ministry.

I want you to notice the language of verse four. The Lord says, “I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” You can trust the Lord in this drought. By God’s word, ravens will bring the prophet bread and meat in the morning and again in the evening. The man of God will be well supplied even through a drought. The prophet must learn, personally, that God will supply all his needs according to His riches in glory.

And eventually the effect of this years-long drought is felt by the prophet too — notice, in verse 7, the brook dries up. Yet still he must trust the Lord when in a drought. First God provides for the prophet through the ravens. Next we’ll see the Lord provide for the prophet in a different way, from a different source.

Then the word of the Lord came to him: “Arise and go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”

Verse 8, and again in verse 16 — this section, called “the widow of Zarephath,” is bracketed by the same phrase, “the word of the Lord.” That’s because the prophet must learn to trust the word of the Lord in secret, as with the ravens, and now he must learn to trust the word of the Lord while exposed, in the city of Zarephath of Sidon.

That’s a particularly important part of this story. Zarephath of Sidon is not just a random place — it’s the stomping grounds of the bloody Queen Jezebel, who is seeking the life of Elijah. So the Lord sends Elijah into Gentile territory, into enemy territory, into the very heart of demon worship. The man must be careful, because there are dangers here. The Lord commanded him, and the Lord will provide for him, and the Lord will protect him.

But that’s not the only repeated phrase. Notice the phrase repeated in verse 9: “I have commanded a widow to feed you there.” This is a graduated level of trust in the Lord. The prophet must learn to trust God to save and to supply all his needs while he’s in secret, and also while he’s exposed.

But he’s not the only one who must trust in the word of the Lord. We’re introduced to an unnamed Gentile widow, and both she and Elijah have a lot on the line. Elijah is in enemy territory, as I’ve mentioned. He has nothing to eat, nothing to drink. And she is in a really bad way, as we’ll see in a moment. Here comes this Israelite preacher who says to her, “Give me a little water, that I may drink.” Excuse me, sir — get it yourself, we’re in a drought, have you not noticed? That’s what I would have said. But that’s not what she says. She just simply goes after a jug. And before she’s out of earshot, Elijah has the gall to say to her, “Oh, hey, miss — hold up, I need to add to my order. The ravens seem to be running late today. Can you bring me bread as well?”

And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.'” And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

It’s an odd pairing, these two — Elijah, prophet of God, on the run in enemy territory, hungry and parched; and to provide for him, the Lord sends, of all people, a widow gathering sticks to prepare a fire on which she will bake her last meal for herself and her son. Pair him with a Gentile widow, an unbeliever preparing to watch her son and then herself starve to death, and to provide for her, the Lord sends her a renegade preacher of Yahweh with eclectic fashion and a weird thing for birds. And both must trust in the word of the Lord.

Elijah tells the widow: my God will supply all your needs. The flour will not be spent, the oil will not go dry. Church, it’s the same thing the Apostle Paul told the church at Philippi, isn’t it? When he was commending them for giving beyond their means to the advance of the gospel to the ends of the earth, he said, “And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

The widow has a choice: take Yahweh at His word, or go her own way. Now, Elijah knows — and our imaginary father with his son knows, and you know — that the Lord will provide, that the flour and the oil will not run out. But she doesn’t know. She has to act on faith. She does not know this Yahweh, God of Israel. Did you catch, in verse 12, how she calls Him “your God”? Yahweh is not her God — Baal is her god. She’s never brought an offering to Yahweh. Why would He take notice of her and her son?

And so the widow has to act in faith. She has to take Yahweh at His word — which she does. She bakes a cake for the man of God, and the Lord keeps His word and provides. The jar of flour was not spent, and the jug of oil did not go empty.

Friends, we too have a choice this morning. I don’t know what it is you’re facing. I don’t know where the Lord is calling you to trust in His word. Maybe the Lord is calling you to trust Him in a terrifying health situation. Maybe He’s calling you to trust Him to care for an aging parent while you’re already spread thin. Maybe He’s calling you to trust Him in a dire financial situation. Maybe He’s calling you to trust Him while one of your children is not following Christ. Maybe He’s calling you to trust Him when your marriage has gone cold. I don’t know what you’re facing. Here’s what I know:

Christian, trust the Lord with all that you have. Spend for His sake, even when it feels like there isn’t enough. If unending flour and unending oil were not enough to convince this Gentile widow that the living God was alive and faithful — look what the living God does next.

After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”

Hardly a worse thing can be imagined. Not many days before this, this woman was preparing her last meal for her son. This weirdo prophet shows up, promises that God will spare her and her son — and He does. And then her son gets sick and dies. What? And why?

I wonder if you’ve ever been in a situation where you witnessed the Lord do a great thing in your life, only to find yourself soon after in a situation even worse than the one from which the Lord delivered you. If so, then you know a little of what this widow is feeling here. Notice she blames Elijah — why’d you even come? You only made matters worse. Why would you give me hope and then just take it? You show up with your Yahweh, exposing my false worship, you save me, and then my son dies. So not only do I not have to starve, I have to watch him die and live the rest of my life with this. What is the point of the flour and the oil if I can’t share it with my child?

If you’re a visitor with us, if you’re not a Christian, I wonder if you may feel a little bit like this widow. Maybe you came to church hoping to get a little help for something you’re going through — maybe a little wisdom to know how to navigate something difficult in your life. And you turn up at this church, and all you’ve heard so far is that you’re a sinner, that you’re under the judgment of God, and that unless you repent before God, you’ll spend eternity apart from Him in hell. You might be wondering, maybe like the widow was with Elijah: what in the world? How does this even help me at all?

Well, my unbelieving friend, understand that a physician will at times inflict pain — not to harm, but to help. The Lord must open our chest, cut it open, in order to heal the infirmity of our heart. That may feel judgmental and unloving, but is the scalpel that removes the cancer judgmental and unloving? This God loves you enough to diagnose your sickness and provide you with the path of healing. He sent His Son Jesus Christ to become man, to heal what was broken in your life and in the world. Like Israel, all of us have turned away from the Lord and worshiped the Baals of our own liking — whatever it was we believed would bring rain, bring prosperity, that’s what we looked to for the good life. And Jesus Christ came and died on the cross and rose on the third day to provide a way for sinners to avoid the judgment of God for their sin and to find peace with God and eternal life. So sinner, turn from your sin today. Trust in Jesus Christ. Receive His mercy and the forgiveness of your sins. Take God at His word, like this widow does.

Let’s keep reading, verse 19. Elijah said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

Elijah’s response to the death of the boy was similar to the widow’s, with one major difference. The widow saw only death — she was in a drought in the land of Baal, her god was dead, her son was dead, everything around her was dead. All she saw was death, death, death. But Elijah, who knows the living God, who knows that God is the God of life, takes his protest to the Lord.

Learn this lesson, PBC: do not fear bringing your questions and objections to the Lord. “Cast your cares on Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). The prayer that prays, “How long, O Lord, will evil and death reign,” is a prayer of faith. It implies that God will one day make things right. And so we pray, and we lament, and we protest against evil and against death, because we know this is not how it ought to be. Famine and death and drought and disease are invaders here. And one day we know death itself will be swallowed up in victory by the Lord Jesus Christ. Church, take your questions to the Lord, as Elijah did.

But I’d like to point out that what Elijah did is weird — weird in general, and weirder for an Israelite prophet. First, he takes the boy into his arms. Understand: under the old covenant, touching a dead body made someone ceremonially unclean. Clean things became unclean when they came into contact with unclean things. So Elijah is making himself ceremonially unclean — cut off from the worship of Yahweh — when he comes into contact with the dead. Then the Bible says he stretches himself out on the boy three times, acting almost like he’s dying with the kid — living out this boy’s death in his own body. Three times the prophet identifies himself with the boy in death.

And then the prophet prays: “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” Now, that might not seem weird to you, but it is really weird — God has never raised the dead. He does this later in the Bible, but not up to this point. Why in the world would Elijah think God would raise the dead when he’s never seen it done, never heard of it done? I don’t know. But Elijah knows that God is a living God, a God of life. So he prays in faith: God, raise the dead. And the Bible says the Lord listened. Life came into the child again, and he was revived.

Elijah takes the boy and returns him to his mother, saying, “See, see, your son lives.” The living God gives life. All she saw was death; now all she sees is life, life, life. And she says to Elijah, verse 24, “Now I know that you are the man of God, and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is truth.” Now she believes. That is what the Lord used to bring this woman to faith — a son risen from the dead.

Now, PBC, this is not the only time this kind of thing happens to a widow with a dead son. If you have your Bible open in front of you, turn to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 7. If you’re using one of the church Bibles, Luke 7 is towards the back, page 863. Luke 7, beginning at verse 11 — we’re now in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.

Note the similarities between these two stories: a widow at a gate with a dead son, the son is raised, the son is returned to the mother, the man of God touches the unclean thing, and the power of God gives life. But notice the differences: unlike Elijah, Jesus did not pray for life — He spoke it. Elijah prayed to God. Jesus Christ is God. Jesus is the greater Elijah.

The Bible says the wages of sin is death. This is why death has invaded our world. We who have participated in sin have brought the sentence of death upon ourselves. We have given ourselves over to the Baals. We dwell in a dry land, a weary land racked with death, in a culture of death, serving the god of death. And on the cross, the Lord Jesus took the penalty of sin. Jesus touched death. Like Elijah, Jesus laid Himself down, identifying Himself with us in death — three days, not a coincidence, just as Elijah stretched himself out three times. God the Father raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead on the third day. And like the widow, this is what the Lord uses to bring us to faith — seeing a Son raised from the dead. And so we can say with her, “Now I know this is the man of God, and His word is truth.” The change in her is the change in us: from death to life. Before Christ, all we knew was death and death and death. Having been raised with Christ, now all we have is life and life and life.

Christian, are you praying for an unbelieving family member or friend? Take heart — your God raises the dead. Are you praying for a loveless marriage? Take heart — your God raises the dead. Do you have a son or daughter who’s not following Christ? Take heart — your God raises the dead. Are the bills stacking up and you’re just trying to stay afloat? Take heart — your God raises the dead.

In a room this size, there are many who know something of losing a baby in the womb or outside of the womb. Sisters, hear what your heavenly Father is saying to you this morning: one day, very soon, you will be received into the eternal kingdom, and the man of God, the risen Christ, will say to you what Elijah said to the widow — “See, your son lives.” Jesus keeps His word. He is the man of God, and His word is true.

Church, trust in Him to provide for you in the drought. For God’s people who are in danger, there will always be ravens with meat in their beaks. For God’s people being asked to give more than they think they can afford, the flour and the oil will not be spent. For God’s people facing the worst possible tragedy imaginable, God will bring life from death. God keeps His word. God will provide. You can trust the Lord when everything around you is death.

The Apostle Paul, writing in a time when he was surrounded by death, put it like this: “We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.”

Christian, this is your story. This is your promise. God’s word is truth. Your God raises the dead.

Let’s pray. Oh Father, what a humbling thing it is that You would look upon us, having brought death to ourselves, and that You would speak life — that You would unite us to Your Son and grant us His righteousness and raise us to life. Give us mouths and hearts and lives that will sing the praise of the One who raises the dead, for all of our days. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.