2 Kings 6:8-23

We're continuing with our study in the lives of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha in 1 and 2 Kings.  It's a crucial period of Biblical history. One of the few points in Biblical history where God intervenes in miraculous ways. The Bible is not - as populalry believed - FULL of miracles.  Miracles are clustered at key points in salvation history when God is defending or progressing his kingdom. So this is a key point of the Bible where we can expect to learn much about God’s work in his world to restore humanity and all creation to himself.

Here we have an episode of war avoided. Of clememcy (mercy, forebearance) that leads to an armistice (a ceasing of hostilities) 

And the great theme that runs through this episode is the theme of blindness and sight. God sees, Elisha sees, The servant is blind and sees, The enemy are blind and they see. 

Seeing, sight and blindness. I can remember when i began to lose the clarity of my sight. I kept complaining about the overhead projector (OHP) being out of focus! It was only when borrowing my sister's glasses at an art gallery that i discovered that i was the one with the sight problem!  

None of us sees clearly, spiritually. Only God sees perfectly. We on the other hand are blind and need to receive the gift of sight and even when we have been given the gift of spiritual sight we need to go on daily having our sight clarified, properly focussed; the eyes of our hearts opened. 

Let’s look at the passage 

3 scenes

Scene 1 vv8-13 is a split screen between the enemy king of Aram (Syria) and his advisors and the hometeam King of Israel and Israel’s prophet Elisha. And the scene is rich in comedy. 

v8 The King of Aram was at war with Israel

Of course war is never a laughing matter, as we remember today those who made the ultimate sacrifice for us. War is tragic and often inexpicable. This war no less than any other because the chapter that immediately precedes this one - we looked at it over the last two weeks - tells the story of how the commmander of the army of Aram, a man called Naaman received extraordinary grace from the God of Israel. Healed from his leprosy, Naaman had come to know the God of grace for himself. Maybe the obscuring of grace perpetrated by Gehazi, Elisha’s assistant, going after Naaman to take payment from him (last week’s passage) had stumbled Naaman and he was no longer a Christian. Maybe this episode happened many years after Naaman’s day, (Elisha seems older - the King calls him Father). We don’t know. All we know is that the King of Aram was at war with Israel. And in his war rooms in a bunker in his palace in damascus he is building a military strategy with his senior advisors. moving models of chariots and horsemen and foot soldiers around a great map of Israel and then sending out coded orders to his officers in the field to make camp in such and such a place. But back in Israel Elisha the man of God is also taking strategy to his commander in chief - the Arameans are there and there.. now there …Time and again Elisha warned the King so that he was on guard in such places. 

And the King of Aram is pulling his hair out. Outfoxed every time. And he demands to know who is the spy in his senior ranks leaking top secret intelligence!!?? But his advisors somehow know about Elisha v12. “Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the King of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.”  

Some commentators conclude that Elisha must have had an informant among the executive office of the King of Aram. A senior staff that would have consisted of the Kings most trusted confidants - family members and the like (let the reader understand). But the passage is deliberately pointing us in the direction that Elisha has prophetic sight, miraculous sight given by the God who sees and (hears) all.

Many times the Bible affirms that God, of course, sees everthing. Nothing escapes his gaze. It’s one of the reasons why he is qualified to judge perfectly because he sees perfectly. He even sees the thoughts and attutudes of our hearts. 

Is this a discomforting thought? In a way yes of course. We don’t want someone to see us do we? That’s what makes this time of year so terrifying as Christmas approaches and Santa’s arrival in town is imminent. “he sees us when we’re sleeping, he knows when we’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake!” It’s sinister isn’t it. A young Jean Paul Sartre upon realising that God sees him was so disturbed that he rejected the whole idea of God. 

Of course whether the omniscience of God is a cause of discomfort or fear very much depends on the character of the God who sees us. 

At a time of great uncertainty th ereality that a God of abundant grace, compassion and goodness sees all and cares for all is a source of great hope and great strength. 

Scene 2 vv14-18 The siege of Dothan

The King of Aram resolves to capture Israel’s secret weapon - Elisha. Intelligence reveals that Elisha a is in the small hill station of Dothan. Aram sends a strong task force of horsemen and chariots by night to surrround the city v15 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?” The servant is understandably alarmed by the turn of events. Dothan has no defences to repeal this sort of attack. Surrounded and hopeless. But Elisha is calm and assured and utters these enigmatic words v16 “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 

And Elisha prays his first prayer for sight. “O Lord open his eyes that he might 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. 

Elisha’s servant was not blind and yet Elisha prays for him to see. And God answers that prayer. 

There is a deeper seeing than just physical sight; seeing the physical world. There is a seeing that none of us have by nature. The foreign enemy - we shall see - didn’t have it. But neither did the good and faithful servant. None of us have spiritual sight whether we’re nasty or nice, wicked or moral. All of us by nature have hearts that are darkened (Ephesians 4). We’re all insensitive to spiritual realities, we can’t see them, we actually suppress them, we’re blind. 

And therefore Spiritual sight - has to be a gift. A miracle. 

This means that becoming a Christian is not - as some think - an extension of a current way of living - turning over a new leaf, a resolution to live the way i ought to live. an extension: becoming morally better; religiously more active. 

No - becoming a Christian is much more like receiving a new faculty; a sixth sense. Being ushered into a whole realm of reality you never knew existed! Its’ more radical than just becoming a good person! 

Imagine a person born totally blind. they have no concept of colour or shade (light or darkness). And they’re talking to you and you’re talking about colours and they say, “So, Is red like the sound of a trumpet or the feel of wool?” and you want to be sensitive by the only answer is ‘No..” because sight is NOT an extension of hearing or feeling. It’s something utterly different. It enables you to perceive realities that hearing and touch cannot perceive and therefore there is no way for you to even imagine what colour or shade is like until you have that faculty. 

Spiritual sight. “O Lord open his eyes, so that he might see” Then the Lord opened the servants eyes and he could see.. Spiritual sight is the begiining of faith. A whole new realm. Where ideas that were so abstract, even silly to you become compelling and real to you. So real that they change you permanently. That they begin to govern your priorities, your decisions, the whole way you live your life.. 

And we’ll see in a bit that that spiritual sight is always a process. It often comes gradually, sometimes it can be instant like with Elisha’s servant. But often it’s a gradual seeing. An dit needs to continue throughout the Christian life - clarifying your sight .. but we’ll come back to that. 

Spiritual sight is a gift. 

Third Episode vv19-23 Capture and Grace

In v18 the enemy forces of Aram begin to descend from the city walls to … take Elisha. Would they have been obstructed.. would there have been death, pillage, rape - the horrors of war? Would Elisha have called upon the fiery hosts of heaven to destroy the enemies of God? 

Elisha prays his second prayer. This time for blindness. “Please strike this people with blindness.” So [the LORD] struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Elisha.

Imagine the scene as these great warriors are suddenly completely disarmed by the loss of their sight. Plunged into darkness. How terrifying it must be to suddenly lose your sight. Murderers instantly become helpless, dependent, like little children. Perhaps some swung their swords around aimlessly in fear and desperation. But they are quickly disarmed and have no choice but to follow Elisha’s lead.. who marches them down the road and leads them to the astonishment of all that watched into Israel’s capital, Samaria. What an extraordinary scene it must have been. Presented to the King of Israel who says to Elisha, “Shall I kill them, my father, shall i kill them?” 

The physical blindness disarms the enemy. But in the Bible. God always strikes people with physical blindness inorder to open their eyes to their spiritual blindness. The classic example is the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus searching out Christians to have them arrested (Acts 9). He is blinded by the Jesus. God’s way of saying: Paul, you are spiritually blind. 

What is it that we are spiritually blind to? What is the nature, the condition of our spiritual blindness. 

Well, firstly we are blind to our sin

The Aramean soldiers, attacking, killing - they thought they were just following orders they didn’t know they were fighting God. 

In the same way unless i am given spiritual sight I cannot see the depth of my own sin. I will see sin as breaking rules and regret sin only when it messes up my life. But when and as spiritual sight is given i will understand sin not just as breaking rules but as a pervasive attitude of heart. I am NOT a good person. Even the good i do, i see that i do for my own sake. CSlewis in his book Mere Christianity says, you know how you can tell when someone s not yet a Christian. They will never say consistently (might say it in a moment of self deprecation but not consistently) that they are self centred, self absorbed. Non Christians might say “I don't like to have to ask for forgiveness. I am good. I don't do a lot of things that are bad. I try to do nothing that is bad.”

The more Christians grow the more they will say, ‘I am not good. I am self centred’.[extended training course for ministers, lovely old couple retired missionaries, most godly woman, tears in her eyes, ‘i’m so proud’ You’re not proud at all!.. She saw that she was..] seeing the depths of your sin. 

And when and as spiritual sight is given i will regret sin not just when it gets me into trouble (which means that when trouble goes i’ll go back to it).. I’ll regret sin because it grieves the God I love and who loves me. And because that never goes away i really might not go back to my sin so easily. Spiritual sight can bring change that lasts. 

blind to our sin - that’s the first part of our condition 

but the second is that we are blind to our own blindness

In John chapter 9 when Jesus heals a man born blind on the sabbath the religious leaders are incensed and Jesus says to them. ‘for judgement i have come into the world so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind. And the religious leaders say, “What? are we blind too?” And Jesus says since you say you can see, you’re doubly blind!!” 

One of the ways that you know you’re blind is that you don’t think you are.. If you don’t think you are blind today - You are 

And the third thing that we are tragically by nature blind to is the beauty of grace.. But of course here also is the way out of our blindness. 

The Aramean soldiers had no idea that Elisha -public enemy number one - was actually the greatest friend they ever had. Elisha - on all the wanted posters of Aram, hated would be the instrument of amazing grace

The Aramean army, the enemy who had been ravaging Israel is led helplesly into the lions den - Samaria. The King of Israel bounces with excitement, Shall i kill them? Shall I kill them? And Elisha answers NO .. give them a feast. Elisha prays for the third time v20 “LORD open the eyes of these men so that they can see.” This army that deserved to die by every rule of war instead are given a feast.. A radical shocking act of clemency that stops the War 

This is the gospel. 

We deserve to die for our utter rejection of God. We’ve abused his glory. Made him our enemy. 

We deserve to die by every rule of war and instead we are given a Feast 

How? 

Because there was another prophet. Hundreds of years after Elijah who too was surrounded by an army in a garden. And when his followers resisted he stopped them saying, Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?  But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?’ (Matthew 26:53-54) 

All recipients of grace receive grace beacuse their sin was put on Jesus Christ. 

Jesus was executed so that we will never be 

He was executed for our war crimes that we might receive a feast 

He was plunged into deepest darkness that we might be brought into the light 

Oh that the Lord would open our eyes again - or maybe for the first time - to the beauty of his grace. 

How can God offer spiritual sight to blind people? - because of Jesus. 

How do we receive that sight? 

We just ask. Like Elisha did. “LORD open his eyes so he can see, her eyes so she can see. My eyes that i might see. 

And it’s a process.. For all of us.. The process of coming to believe; seeing who Jesus is ...Is an ongoing process of having our eyes opened to the glory of God 

Elisha’s servant - he was already a believer.. he would have known God, known a lot about God, a lot of right theology and doctrines. He panics when he sees that Dothan is surrounded by the enemy..He knew the promise that God is always with his people but he didn’t see it. And because he knew it just in his head and not with the eyes of his heart it didn’t deeply affect him. But when he had his eyes opened… When he saw it ..he knew it not just with his head but with his heart. He saw the reality of an idea that previously was just an abstraction. And when he saw it - it gripped his heart and changed him 

See it’s possible to believe in a God if forgiveness and yet still be wracked with guilt. It's possible to believe that God says don’t commit adultery but then get embroiled in an affair 

You believe something but you don’t SEE it 

Cos if you saw it … it would change you 

We need God’s ongoing help to clarify our vision. to be people who are constantly saying - i've heard this before but now i see it! 

That’s why the great apostle Paul prays in Ephesians 1 for christians that the eyes of your hearts will go on being enlightened that you might see Jesus, know Jesus. 

If you’re a Christian you’ve been wonderfully given the gift of sight to overcome your blindness, so that you might see the depth of your sin and the beauty of God’s grace.. but your sight needs to be constantly clarified (cleaning my glasses) and constantly improving. We slip back into spiritual short sightedness and so Everyday we need to pray as we look at Jesus in the Scriptures. every day ..”Open my eyes Lord so that I may see.”

2 Kings 5: 15-27

It doesn’t take much to distort a message with huge consequences: 

a wealthy american lady was travelling in europe and found a piece of jewellry she wanted. the price was outrageous but she emailed her husband any way telling him of her desire and the cost of the item. upon receipt of the message her husband instructed his secretary to immediately email back : “No, price too high” The problem was that the secretary omitted the rather important comma. the message the wife received from her husband was “No price too high” and there were celebrations in Europe. 

It doesn’t take much to distort a message with huge consequences. A comma. A couple of bags of silver and a couple of changes of clothes..  

we come the second half of the Naaman story the first part of which we looked at last week. 

Naaman is a foreigner. He is the commander of the Aramean army. Aram is modern day Syria. He’s hugely successful and highly regarded but he suffers with leprosy. There’s a young Israelite slave girl in his household. We never learn her name. She was taken captive by Syrian raiders. You know that story that continues in the news about the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram - this girl is like one of those. Naaman is like a Boko Haram general and yet she speaks up to help him. She directs him to Elisha, the prophet of God in Israel. Naaman turns up at Elisha’s place with a huge entourage and huge amounts of cash - gold, silver and changes of clothing for a great exchange - Naaman’s wealth and greatness for a grand healing! And Elisha sends out a message via his assistant Gehazi - go and wash in the Jordan river 7 times and you’ll be restored. Naaman is furious with this nothing-something - as Nigel called it last week. But eventually he is persuaded to do it and his skin is totally restored, not just improved, his skin becomes like that of a young boy. Elisha refuses ANY payment for this healing. This is God’s gift - given not because you deserve it Naaman - because you DO NOT.. and not because you bought it, Naaman because you DID NOT. And Naaman sets off back to Syria resolved to worship the God of Elisha, changed not only outwardly but inwardly. He has begun to know for himself the true God of power and grace …

And then we come to the second part of the story 

The greed of Gehazi 

Elisha’s servant, Gehazi, his personal assistant goes dishonestly after the clothing and silver that Naaman had offered to Elisha. and he covets and lies and steals as one sin leads to another and is compounded. and he does so at a terrible price. We shall see that something terrible arises from Gehazi’s sin which justifes the punishment that Gehazi receives. The leprosy of Naaman will cling to you and your descendents throughout all generations! 

This will be a very sobering story

 It’s important to remeber who Gehazi is. Gehazi is NOT the bad guy. Naaman was the bad guy! Naaman, healed of his leprosy.. his skin restored was the pagan, the idol worshipper. Naaman was the Boko Haram general responsible for murder and the kidnap of young girls. Gehazi was an Israelite, a worshipper of God - a Christian. He is described every time we see him as the servant of elisha drawing parallels with the earlier relationship between elisha and elijah. We’ve seen Gehazi in action. He is Elisha’s representative 2 Kings 4:13, his right hand man. Elisha seeks advice from Gehazi 4v14. He acts through Gehazi and sends him on missions for him 4v29. 

So Gehazi is NOT the bad guy. He is a devout individual. Part of the company of the prophets.  companion and servant of the greatest prophet of the time. So gehazi was a man of faith. One who was willing to endure material deprivations and endure persecutions and support elisha. Remeber this waspost jezebel israel a very difficult and dangerous environment in which to administer the truth amidst all of the idolatry of Israel which Elijah and Elisha had been so vigorously combatting and denouncing 

So Gehazi is definitely a good and faithful and godly man up to this point 

This is why this is such a sobering story for US. Because Gehazi is an example of what can happen to even a devout individual. In fact the great sin that Gehazi is guilty of is a sin that only a christian can commit!  

The apostle paul warns in 1 Co 10:13 “if you think you’re standing firm .. be careful you don’t fall” You can be confident of your strength, that you’re beyond reproach, a strong Christian, clued up. That confidence can deteriorate into a self confidence and self assurance and you become careless and let down your guard..

gehazi is a tragic example of that. he succumbs to the sin of greed and covetousness 

what we need to understand is that we are people who are living with a fallen human nature even if our hearts have been changed and we’ve been born again by the spirit of god, the old nature remains within us. 

the minute you let down your guard you’re in trouble

this we see as we look at gehazi.                                                                                                          

see first, his rationalisations

v20 After Naaman had traveled some distance, Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said to himself, “My master was too easy on Naaman, this Aramean, 

there’s probably an ethnic slur there. it doesn’t say Naaman the dirty Syrian but that’s probably the sense of it. ‘this Aramean.’ This is the enemy who owes much to us for his actions.  

“My master was too easy on Naaman, this Aramean, by not accepting from him what he brought. As surely as the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.”

Gehazi had seen and heard his master, Elisha refuse any gift from Naaman. 5v16 As surely as the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will not acceot a thing.” And even though Naaman urged him he refused. The example of the prophet was clear but Gehazi rationalises his actions to go after some of those tantalising riches. 

he rationalises need and self pity                                                                                                           

this is such a waste! Naaman is so rich he has all of that wealth, he’s not going to miss any of that and he’s our enemy, he’s put us in this place! we could use it - we’re so poor we’re always on the run, our lives are constantly under threat because of these wicked kings of israel it’s time to spread the wealth around a little bit. we could use a little clothes, we could use a little money. we’re struggling out here. We deserve this.. 

I’m sure Gehazi was rationalising that this wasn’t just for him - this was for all the community he was with - although of course when he returns he tries to hide the booty from Elisha. Quite how he was going to explain the new wealth of the community we have no idea. I rather think that the wealth was for him.. but he rationsalised that it was for the common good.  

Here’s the point: every sin has its plausible explanation. by plausible i mean one that makes sense to us at the moment that we determine to commit it 

that is true from Hitler to Hollywood. from genocide to pornography and everything in between we rationalise. Hitler wanted to create the perfect germanic workers’ paradise and the world could enjoy the benefits of german genius exercised from the top 

we’re always rationalising that 'after all we really deserve it' or 'they deserve what their getting' or 'i need it' or 'it won’t be missed they have so much' or 'i had to because …'

and it all seems to us at that moment at least very reasonable, very excusable very understandable. we minimise the act we maximise the pressures on us that make it necessary 

it all makes such perfect sense to gehazi and look at the ultimate cherry on the cake - he puts a spiritual gloss on his sin. v20 As surely as the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.” God would want this. God is gracious he doesn’t hold back from us. To honour God.. I will do this.. 

Gehazi provides for us an example of that which we are always doing. rationalising and in the process we’re letting down our guard; and in the process weakening our own character. and the likelihood of yet another transgression in that direction as we are corrupted by those little decisions and make future decisions that are of greater consequence.  

there’s the rationalisations - then comes the act itself v21 So Gehazi hurried after Naaman. When Naaman saw him running toward him, he got down from the chariot to meet him. “Is everything all right?” he asked. 22 “Everything is all right,” Gehazi answered. “My master has sent me

is that true? no that wasn’t true. it’s a lie. so he’s adding to the breaking of the 10th commandment ‘you shall not covet’ with breaking the the 9th commandment ‘you shall not bear false witness’ 

My master has sent me to say, ‘Two young men from the company of the prophets have just come to me from the hill country of Ephraim. 

now is that true? there’s no evidence that it’s true. it’s never mentioned in the text. this seems to be a story he just made up. a plausible story for a plausible sin. 

Please give them a talent of silver and two sets of clothing.’”

Now notice this? he doesn’t ask for the gold remember there were vast amounts of gold, he doesn’t ask for that. there were ten talents of silver that Naaman had brought with him. he only asks for one of those Naaman had ten sets of clothing he only asks for 2 of those. 

why didn’t he ask for more? why didn’t he ask for a bag of gold as well? that would have gone a long way.. 

well it’s all part of the rationalisation isn’t it? Gehazi is being restrained. very modest in what he’s requesting. i’m not being like a greedy person who would go and ask for all of that gold and silver- instant millionaire - that would be sinful! i’m not a greedy individual. I’m not taking more than would be a reasonable amount. I’m a godly individual, i’m a good christian so i’m just asking for what is reasonable and sensible payment for us poor starving sons of the prophets 

i’m not going to ask for ten changes of clothing just 2; and i’m not going to ask for ten talents of sliver, no no just one will be fine; and i’m not even going to touch the gold. aren’t i virtuous! 

see how our sinful minds work? in the midst of the commission of this crime he is rationalising and convincing himself of his virtue in not taking more like a truly sinful person would do. 

whenever you or i are stepping in a direction away from God we will find some way of justifying it.. and to find a way even in the commission of the act to convince ourselves that we are somehow virtuous. that there is virtue in what we do!

v23 “By all means, take two talents,” said Naaman. He urged Gehazi to accept them, and then tied up the two talents of silver in two bags, with two sets of clothing. Gehazi i’m sure with great protestation, unlike his master Elisha, allows Naaman to press upon him an extra bag of silver and then v23 [Naaman] gave them to two of his servants, and they carried them ahead of Gehazi. Naaman even provides Gehazi with grand free delivery to carry off the loot 

v24 When Gehazi came to the hill, probably in samaria he took the things from the servants he doesn’t after all want elisha to see this and put them away in the house. He sent the men away and they left. Then he went in ..

You can see what Gehazi is doing here. If his actions HAD been righteous he would have presented them to Elisha. BUt It’s a bit like when i come back from a slightly indulgent shopping trip. Letting himself silently in the back door, sticking the stuff quickly in the wardrobe in his bedroom. And then going around to arrive by the front door. ‘Hi Elisha, I’m home!” 

25 When he went in and stood before his master, Elisha asked him, “Wherehaveyoubeen, Gehazi?” Gehazi answered. “Your servant didn’t go anywhere,”

every parent has to love that response

it’s midnight - where have you been? i haven’t been anywhere 

who were you on the phone with? no-one 

such a guilty answer. irrefutable proof that something is up  

where have you been? 

how that question makes the guilty tremble. 

Gehazi knows his number is up as soon as that question is asked 

the weakest answer since adam in the garden 

what have you done? 

i don’t want to be asked that question on judgement day. what have you done? the answer won’t be pretty. i don’t want to answer the question where have you been? those are very threatening questions that expose our souls 

and gehazi is exposed and he knows it 

in the last 2 verses we see the judgement that results

v26 But Elisha said to him, “Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? 

literally ‘did not my heart go with you?’ meaning my awareness about where you were going, my concern about where you were going… i saw your eyes when you looked at that vast treasure and i saw the longing, and it told me that you were thinking ‘oh no, don’t let it all get away’ i could see the covetousness, i could see the yearning . and when you slipped out my heart went with you … i thought ‘oh no ..where is he going ? what will he do? and i knew what you were after’ Elisha knew it either because he was a careful observor of human nature or he knew it because God gave him prophetic insight - whatever the case … he knew. … 

27 Naaman’s leprosy will cling to you, Gehazi, and to your descendants forever.” Then Gehazi went from Elisha’s presence and his skin was leprous—it had become as white as snow.

perpetual leprosy is God’s judgement upon Gehazi. Naaman, the leper, is cleansed. Gehazi, the servant of God, is made leprous!! 

a moment of weakness can destroy your family, your career, your whole life.                                   

YET the seriousness of this judgement implies that a deeper sin has been committed here. 

Look at Elisha’s words again in v26 “Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you?  Is this the time to take money or to accept clothes—or olive groves and vineyards, or flocks and herds, or male and female slaves? 

is this the time, Gehazi to receive gifts?  there may be such a time.  there’s nothing inherently wrong with ministers receiving gifts. but this was not the time 

remember that Naaman had arrived to do a deal with God. My wealth and and greatness in exchange for a grand healing. this was the pagan view of the gods: you brought the gift and by doing so you purchased for yourself the assurance; the certainty that the god would intervene on your behalf. God as a divine vending machine – put in your money – choose your gift – in this case healing – and press the button with the right prophet. 

This view of God is not limited to the ancient world. Bus journey in the Himalayas in NW India. Terrifying roads. Bus driver stop at a shrine offer some gifts and then really put his foot down!

Neither is this view of God limited to Eastern religions. All religion is based upon my doing enough, giving enough to warrant God’s favour. Enough religious practice, enough good deeds to outweigh my bad. It’s about me climbing the ladder by my actions and gifts to get to God. 

But Christianity says religion can never work. This solution has way too high a view of myself and way too low a view of God. The Bible says that God is more holy and perfect and glorious than we can possibly imagine. The very idea that we - flawed and broken and selfish human beings can climb our way into the presence of God, win or buy his admiration and favour is utterly preposterous. Deep down we know it, deep down we know we’re lost - it’s why we desperately cling to what we have our importance, our wealth, our benevolent acts.. 

But the radical message of Christianity is grace. That we do not climb the ladder up to God.. we cannot! Instead God descends to us. Not that he lowers his standards or compromises his character. No, in love, he came down in the person of Jesus Christ to pay for our failures that he might offer us mercy, forgiveness, healing, relationship with himself freely. FREE grace. 

Grace is the only way to know God. 

It’s humbling - you can do nothing ..you can only receive it 

Which means that the tiniest implication that we have to do something to win God’s favour or give something in return for God’s favour is toxic to relationship with God. As soon as you trust in yourself you are not trusting in Christ. You’re pursuing self salvation which doesn’t work. Whenever you think ‘God owes me, i’ve served him, I’ve given, I’ve paid my dues’ then you know you are no longer relating to the true God but some slot machine idol of your own making. 

Remember how adamant Elisha was that he wouldn’t pander to Naaman’s sense of his own greatness. Just go and dip in the jordan in your yfronts. And Elisha wouldn’t receive one sheckel of Naaman's wealth. 

Not because gifts are wrong but because this was NOT the time

not when you have a pagan syrian who does not understand the ways of God and who doesn’t understand the grace of God and thinks he can bribe his way into God’s favour. We didn’t want to obscure the gospel, gehazi This was not the time! 

And now what happens with Naaman and his new faith as he returns to Syria with news of the God who had totally healed him for the price of two bags of sliver and two sets of clothes. What happens when Naaman serves the God of Elisha and gives his money to God’s work and then something goes wrong in his life? Does he give up on God? 

Obscuring the gospel of grace is a matter of life and death! It has eternal consequences in people’s lives. Listen to the Apostle Paul in his NT letter to the Galatians (1:8) if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse! That is - eternally damned!!

At the time of the reformation in Europe, heretics - preaching salvation by works were executed. it was universally accepted that if you were preaching heresy you were killing people spiritually and therefore guilty of murder - a capital crime deserving capital punishment. 

Gehazi, you could say therefore, standing there, a leper.. was fortunate.. it could have been worse. 

His family’s leprosy would bear witness to the need not to obscure the gospel of grace. 

It doesn’t take much to distort a message with huge consequences

A warning for church leaders and any who teach and convey the christian message by our words and by our lives.. 

Grace is glorious. and grace is dangerous

2 Kings 5:1-18 Nigel Beynon

I recently watched a guy interviewing American students about people identifying as a different gender and whether they should have access to the toilets they wanted. 

Everyone answered that we should be inclusive - people should be able to use the toilet they want to.

He then pushed it – what if I told you ‘I am a woman’ – would you agree with that - most say - ‘fair enough if that’s what you want’

What about ‘I am Chinese’ – he clearly isn’t – and now a few have some problems agreeing with that. 

I am 7 years old

I am 6 foot 5 tall. He’s clearly 5 foot something. Most people are really struggling now.

But when he says ‘would you tell me I’m wrong’ – nearly all say – ‘no, that’s not my place, I can’t draw boundaries’.

He finishes by saying to the camera – it shouldn’t be hard to tell a 5 foot 9 white guy he’s not a 6 foot 5 Chinese woman - but it clearly is - what does that say about our culture?

Well our culture isn’t too different – there is huge pressure today to be inclusive – not to draw boundaries. Not to tell someone they are wrong. 

At the same time that interview showed that being totally inclusive can end up in a very confused place. There are realities that bring boundaries and exclusions. Yet we can find that exclusivism – that marking that things are right or wrong – often is rather ugly or arrogant. We see that particularly in area of politics at the moment.

That often feels like the choice – inclusivism that welcomes but ends up confused. Or exclusivism which had boundaries might fit reality but is often harsh and ugly. 

Giles has mentioned that this book of Kings was written to Israelites in exile in Babylon. God’s people are living in this foreign place – exiles from their true home. The Bible describes Christians as exiles too. Our true home – is heaven – or the new creation – but now we live as exiles – or strangers - in this world.

And Kings is written to help them and us live for God – in exile. I think our passage tonight helps us with these issues of a confused inclusivism, or an ugly exclusivism.  

First of all let’s walk through the story again.

V1 Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy

Naaman is a success story. He’s a success in his career – he probably got top marks at school, graduated with honours - now commander in chief of Syria. 

He’s a success in his reputation and connections – the king thinks he is a great man.

He’s a success militarily – he’s highly regarded – because he’s won battles for Syria.

He’s a success personally – a valiant soldier. He doesn’t just command well – he fights well. 

But there is one personal battle he can’t win – but he had leprosy. 

V2 Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”. 

Notice this girl is an exile – living away from home in a foreign place. And she’s going to show us how to live for God in exile. For now she directs Naaman to Elisha.

Naaman asks the king for permission – gets a letter requesting healing – packs his money and gifts – and goes to the king of Israel.

It turns out all the king can say v7 “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”. Now the king is right – only God can give life – heal of leprosy – but it doesn’t occur to him to call for Elisha – God’s prophet. Which is a sad reflection on his state - this little girl in Syria thinks more of God’s prophet than the king at home. 

But Elisha says send him to me – v9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 

This reminds me of scenes from House of Cards – where Kevin Spacey - the President - arrives in his motorcade – he’s in a limo, there are 2 or 3 four by fours in front and behind him – motorbike outriders – lots of men in suits wearing shades. It’s all very impressive. 

Well Naaman arrives like that – it’s horses and chariot, maybe donkey outriders. But it’s impressive. They pull up and the dust settles – there’s a pause – then the door opens and a boy comes out knocks on the window of the limo – gives them a note – go down there about 20 miles, river is on the right. 

V11  But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.

Turns out Naaman is very proud. All that success – made him think he really was a great man, so surely he’d come out to me and give me the right respect. 

But his servants persuade him – so v14 he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

And this healing leads to the most amazing change in Naaman. 

V15 Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel.” That is an amazing confession. As a pagan Naaman who have believed in lots of gods – gods who were in charge of different parts of life or different parts of the world. But he doesn’t say – wow – your god is really amazing in the skin department – or wow – your god is really powerful here in Israel - I’m going to add him to the gods I worship. No – v15 “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel.”

In fact v17 “please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord. He’s only going to worship Yahweh now – wants to do so on home turf. It’s as though he’s become an exile too.

We could sum this is up with v14 – ‘clean like that of a young boy’ – that word ‘young boy’ – that is used in v2 – young girl – only this time it’s the masculine. We’re being told Naaman has become like her. 

Much more than Naaman’s skin has changed – he’s become an exiled Israelite worshipping Yahweh.

So what we learn about how to live for God in exile?

First thing that stands out is that,

Grace from Jesus means anyone can be saved

Or if you like – grace from Jesus is totally inclusive – everyone can be included.

I’ve said grace from Jesus – in the OT the God of Israel is called Yahweh – but by the NT we meet that God in Jesus. By saved I mean being forgiven and coming to know God.

Grace from Jesus means anyone can be saved.

We see this played out in two ways – first of all think about our servant girl. 

She’s probably a young teenager – who went to school and played in the street. She had her family, friends, her hopes and dreams. But one day some scary foreign men turned up – they were rough and violent – probably killed people. Maybe they killed her parents. And they grabbed her and carted her off to Syria. 

Now – how would you expect her to feel towards Naaman? She’s lost her home, her family, her friends, her dreams. And he was the one in charge of that raiding party - he might have been the one who killed her parents. 

She could look at Naaman and see the man responsible for devastating her life. You’d have thought she’d hate him for that. It’s easy to imagine her crying herself to sleep far away from home - thinking at least he’s got leprosy – I hope some more bits fall off him tomorrow. I hate him for what he’s done to me.

Then we read v3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” You expect to find hate and bitterness instead you forgiveness and love. She cares for him – she wants him to get better.

It’s the most incredible - counter intuitive - grace.

Now why is she like that? Well it’s not explained to us – but I can only think she’s got some sense that this is what God is like – he is God of incredible counter intuitive grace. 

We saw how Naaman goes to the king and then to Elisha – and from him gets a message from God.  

Now let’s ask – what would God think of Naaman? Well – Naaman is a pagan - he doesn’t worship Yahweh – he worships other gods – lots of them. And he thanks them and praises them for all of the things that actually Yahweh does for him.

More than that this is the commander in chief of the enemy. He’s organized attacks on God’s people. He’s killed God’s people. 

So God can look down on him if you like and say – you ignore me, you don’t give me the time of day – you worship other gods in my place – you attack my people - you kill my people. And now you come and say you want me to heal you!

You’d think it would bring some sort of a divine slap across the face. How dare you ask me that! Naaman is the last person God would help.

And then God says – go and wash and v14 his flesh was restored and became clean. 

It’s extraordinary grace. That God would look at a pagan, enemy, killer, and say – I’ll help you. 

And if someone like Naaman can get grace – be healed or saved – that means anyone can. Doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done. Grace is totally inclusive – it’s for anyone. 

You may know the very definition of grace is being good to someone who doesn’t deserves it. But more than just a dry definition of grace – here we get a worked example of grace. Here we get grace ‘enfleshed’ – worked out. As we see someone as bad as Naaman being healed - we should think – wow – grace really is for anyone. There is no barrier of morality, or ethnicity, or age, class, sexuality, intelligence, wealth, background – if Naaman can be saved – anyone can.

I’ve thought this week about who Naaman is today. Who is the proud, successful, rich, attacking God’s people. Who’s the last person you’d think God would have mercy on? Could think of the religious terrorist, Islamic State? The secular celebrity atheist – a Richard Dawkins attacking Christians. The rich, successful city banker who ignores God - until they get ill.  

In some ways they are Naaman’s in an outward way. Yet Jesus said ‘light has come into the world… but everyone who does evil hates the light’ – he’s saying that left to ourselves – we hate Jesus. We’re instinctively and naturally enemies of God. 

In other words we are all Naaman – we can all say, I’m the last person you’d think God would help. 

And as we think – how amazing that God would have mercy on Naaman – we should think – how amazing God would have mercy on me. Grace means anyone can be saved. Even us. 

Now there is a second theme I want us to look at. While grace from Jesus means anyone can be saved. At the same time

Grace from Jesus is the only way you can be saved – it’s exclusive

Grace from Jesus is inclusive – it’s for all. But it’s also exclusive – it’s the only way you can be saved.

Again this girl gives us a sense of that – she says – v3“If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” She doesn’t direct him to the Syrian gods or any other prophets. It’s specific and particular – it’s Elisha – Yahweh’s prophet – that is where he’s got to go. 

That particularity reaches its height in v15 Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel.  That’s pretty exclusive isn’t it? There is no God but Yahweh – who leads us to Jesus. There is no God but Jesus. 

Now – how did Naaman come to that conclusion? It’s interesting that he seems to have been expecting some sort of healing. He travels a long way, he brings lots of money, he says v11 “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.

So in some way – he expected healing. But when he gets it – he’s amazingly changed. Why is that? 

Part of the reason is the totality of his healing. He might have been expecting some improvement - the skin sores to get a bit better – the colour to come back a little.

This week I got some L’Oreal skin moisturizer – I was taken by their blurb “At L'Oréal Paris we know your skin inside and out. Proven science captured in luxurious textures for a sumptuous skin care experience. For beautiful skin today and more youthful looking skin tomorrow.”

I’ve been using this this week – I’m a bit upset actually that since I’ve been here tonight – no one has commented – on how youthful I was looking. 

But v14 he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. This isn’t some L’Oreal improvement – he gets the skin of a child. He doesn’t get a bit better – he gets totally better. His skin was dying – and now it’s new. 

And that is something only the real God can do. The totality of this – shows him – Yahweh is a God like no other– this can only be the one true God.  

Think of the exiles in Babylon surrounded by foreign gods – or Christians today – surrounded by other religions – or the gods of our culture. 

In exile there’s a temptation to join in with other gods. Or if not join in – at least keep Yahweh or Jesus private – downgrade him in our minds so that while he’s my God - he doesn’t affect anyone else. 

Well to exiles we get v15 there is no God in all the world except in Israel. 

That exclusivity – can feel too much today – Jesus is my God yes, but the only God – so that everyone else is wrong? – that’s feels too much. 

I feel the same to be honest. But as we said earlier it helps to remember being totally inclusive – ends up in confusion. Religious pluralism – saying everyone is right – means you end up saying contradictory things. There is a God or there isn’t, Jesus died and rose again or he didn’t. To say we all agree is just wrong. I find it helpful to remember that.  

But more than that here is a miracle – convincing a pagan, Yahweh is the one true God. We see the same in Jesus’ miracles – in Jesus’ resurrection – proving, convincing sceptics he is the one true God in the flesh. 

We should read this and be reminded – be challenged – be assured – Christianity is exclusive - there is only one God who can do these things. 

Grace from Jesus is the only way you can be saved

But there is a second part to this exclusivity – we’ve said grace from Jesus the one true God – is the only way. But secondly grace from Jesus that is the only way. So accepting that grace is the only way.

Naaman is told to go and wash – he responds v11 “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.

We see how he expected a prophet to operate. He would come out and do his magic – wave his hand, call on his God – there would be an impressive ceremony or ritual. 

Added to that – remember he’s brought money with him v5 ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold – in today’s money that’s about 2 million pounds. 

He sees God as a divine vending machine – put in your money – choose your gift – in this case healing – and press the button with the right prophet. 

And notice that with that – Naaman stays in control – and he stays great. The great man – pays his great money – the prophets does his great magic – and he’s healed - becoming greater.

But God won’t heal him like that – God only saves by grace. And grace is for the undeserving – grace is for those who aren’t great. So to receive this grace – you have admit that – you have to give up on yourself – and give yourself to God’s grace. 

We see this in what his servants say: v13 “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” Literally they say ‘has he told you to do a great thing’. Well – no. 

If Elisha had told him to do a great thing – defeat this country in battle – climb this mountain – Naaman would have done it – he was a great man. 

Instead he’s told to do no great thing - just to wash 7 times. That is what I want to call a ‘nothing something’. 

It’s a something – it’s something he has to do. He’s not told ‘don’t do anything’ – it’s not – ‘do what you like’ – it’s ‘do this’. It’s very specific – in the Jordan, 7 times. So it’s a definite something.

But it’s a nothing – by that I mean - it’s of no merit – it’s doesn’t deserve anything. Naaman thinks - anyone could do that - and I’m not anyone – I’m someone. But he’s right – anyone could do it – it’s a nothing. 

God is saying - this will only happen by grace – that means giving up being great – admitting you can’t deserve this – stop being in charge and trying to control me – submit to me and what I say – all that is captured in this nothing something. 

Naaman humbles himself and he receives grace. 

And then he confesses – there is no God in all the world but this God. Partly because it’s total healing. But I think also because it’s by grace. It’s though he says - I’ve never known a god like this. A God I can’t control, a God I submit to, a God where I don’t deserve anything, a God who acts in grace to the humble. It convinces him – this is the true, the only God.

Message is the same today – if you’re someone who wants to become a Christian – it’s no great thing God asks you to do – it’s a nothing something. We admit we don’t deserve it, humble ourselves, and we put our trust in a crucified savior and his grace.

The message to exiles – to Christians today is the same. As exiles, trying to live for God amongst those who don’t – you can become focused on what you do for God, trying to stay pure for God, distinctive from those around you. And if you do well at that – you can become proud. And if you do badly – you can want to give up. Well here’s a reminder to exiles - however much you live for God – or fail to live for God – you only know him by grace. 

In a bit we’re going to take communion - it’s a nothing something. It’s something – we eat a bit of bread and drink some wine. But it’s a nothing – it doesn’t earn anything – it doesn’t bring any merit – it’s a nothing something and so it expresses our dependence – it says – no matter how this week has been – good or bad – I come empty handed and submit myself to God’s grace. And as we do that – God promises his grace to us continues.

So inclusivism or exclusivism? Inclusivism is lovely and welcoming but often ends up confused. Exclusivism can have right boundaries – but often ends up harsh and ugly. 

Jesus brings both. He’s totally inclusive - the door is open wide – anyone is welcome in. 

But at the same time it’s a particular door – it’s only Jesus who is the true God. And it’s only his grace that means you can enter. 

Grace from Jesus means anyone can be saved.

Grace from Jesus is the only way to be saved.

2 Kings 4:8-37

We’ve just witnessed the baptism of Seth Herbert Mulryne. And as I said, baptism is a symbol, a picture of the Christian life. The journey that Seth has begun. The journey from life to death to resurrection. In some churches rather than pouring water on the child. They submerge the child in the waters and then lift the child up high. A picture of new birth! From Life to death to resurrection. That’s the shape - like the Nike swoosh! 

Now what on earth is this all about? Life, death, resurrection. 

Well the bible tells us in a hundred different ways 

And our passage today from the depths of the Old testament - 600 years before the life of Jesus Christ - just so happens to trace this journey, this salvation for us. 

The story focusses around three moments that are the same and yet so different 

3 moments of A child in his mother’s arms. 

A promised child v16 ‘about this time next year you will hold a son in your arms.’ A promised child

who becomes 

A dead child v20 'the boy sat on her lap until noon and then he died.' A dead child 

who becomes 

A risen child v37 'she took her son and went out.' A risen child. 

promised, dead, risen 

Let’s consider each of these in turn 

First then the promised child. 

In our passage we meet a remarkable woman. We never learn her name. She lives in the town of Shunem and so is known simply as the Shunemmite woman. She’s remarkable for her spiritual poise and hunger for God after all that she’s been through. This hunger for God is seen in the way that she treats Elisha - the prophet of God. Yes, she was a woman of means but it still takes a lot to build an extension on your home purely to provide a resting place for a travelling missionary. To welcome him into their home and life. Because she loves his teaching about God. v23 implies that when Elisha wasn’t with them she would go to him every sabbath or holy day to learn. 

Not only this, she is a woman of great contentment. When Elisha wants to do something for her v13, put in a word with the King or the commander of the army. 

She replies. ‘I have a home among my own people’ 

Now i say this contentment and spiritual vitality is a surprise because actually there was a great shadow of sadness over this woman’s life, v14 she has no son and her husband was old.  This couple had never been ever to have children and it’s not going to happen now. Which must have been a source of great sadness and strain for them as it is for any couple, any person who’d love to have kids. But it was doubly a problem in that culture. With no son and heir who would support you in your old age? But worse still was the social shame and stigma. A commonly held false religious superstition was that childlessness was a sign of God’s displeasure. You’ve done something to offend God - that’s why you can’t have children. Social shame is one thing. Social shame in the context of religion is the worst kind. My late father had the misfortune to be conceived out of wedlock in 1930s southern Ireland. His mother came to England to give birth as so many Irish girls did and she left him here in an orphanage. He was later reunited with his parents but kept a secret from Irish relatives for the whole of my grandmother’s life. Shame. 

It’s a terrible damaging thing. 

It’s extraordinary that this woman is who she is. 

And Elisha gets to reveal something wonderful to her. v16 God wants to take away her shame. 

“About this time next year,” Elisha said, “You will hold a son in your arms.”

Her response reveals something of the depths of her desire for a son and also her fear of further disappointment. No my Lord .. don’t mislead your servant, O man of God. 

But she didn’t need to fear. God is true to his promises.. she became pregnant and the next year about the same time she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her. 

Can you see her in your minds eye? A promised child in her arms. 

Miracle births. the promise of a child to barren parents is a common motif in the Bible. In fact that little phrase “About this time next year” is the exact phrase that God spoke to Abraham when he promised that his barren wife Sarah would have a son. Genesis 18v10. Our minds are meant to be sent there.

God had made a promise. He’d made a perfect world - no shame, no sickness or dying AND human disobedience had sent that world spiralling into death. The event known as THE FALL. But God then made a promise to childless Abraham that through his offspring God would bless and ultimately restore the world - no more sickness, no more tears, no more death. Death would be conquered. Life - death - resurrection 

Now, Every time through the Bible that God gives life to a barren womb and brings a promised child - and he does it time and time again it is as if to confirm that the bigger promise to give life back to the world is still on track 

until we come to the ultimate miracle birth. not an ageing woman, but a teenager. not a barren womb but a virgin womb. Mary bears Jesus Christ. The promised son she holds in her arms is the focal point of that promised blessing and restoration for the world. 

But before there can be resurrection.. there has be death..

in the space of 3 verses the Shumanite’s child is born, the child grew and then he died

A promised child becomes 

2. A dead child

How awful this is. the small lad is struck by some kind of illness as if from nowhere and he just dies on his mother’s lap. can you see her, holding her dead son in her arms. [funerals for children]

life can be so cruel can’t it? and God’s ways so inexplicable. many people say how can i believe in God when he permits suffering? When he premits even to fall upon the people who trust him and live for him!!?? 

Well, God certainly never in Scripture promises that if you trust him he’ll shelter you from pain. Scripture is full of stories like this. In the Spirit of the writer of psalm 102 who wrote God, You have taken me up and thrown me aside’ our Shunemmite woman says to Elisha v28 ‘did i ask you for a son my Lord? Didn’t i tell you, don’t raise my hopes?” 

You know, questioning God, saying why God? in the face of suffering and pain is not actually a sign of a lack of faith. It actually reveals faith in us. Richard Dawkins, the atheistic Oxford professor of public science says that “in a universe of selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe,’ he says, ‘has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

To which i want to say, but Richard, that is not the universe that I observe. When we encounter the untimely death of a child or when we lose someone that we have loved and shared life with for decades - and they are gone. We do not feel pitiless indifference. Far from it, we cry out 'why?' Death seems so evil, so unnatural. In the words of Dylan Thomas, we 'rage against the dying of the light.' And who are we crying out to in those moments if it is not God?

We can run from him in grief and despair but where then do we run to?

The Shunemmite woman runs to God’s representative because she believes that in spite of all the unknowns God is the God of the living not the dead; of life, not death. And her hope resides in him alone. 

She lays the child v21 on Elisha’s bed in Elisha’s room and sets out to find him telling her perplexed husband ‘Shalom’ : All is well; telling Elisha’s servant who is sent out to meet her, ‘Shalom’ All is well’ Taking hold of Elisha and not letting go even when he sends his servant with his staff. I’m not leaving you until you come Elisha.. 

And when Elisha comes he is faced with our human helplessness in the face of death. The staff has not worked. And Elisha prays. 

And he lays himself out on top of the boy mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands.. 

what on earth is this? 

In the Old Testament law - a dead body was considered unclean. If you, a living person touched a dead body - you became symbolically unclean and couldn’t meet others or enter the temple to worship God for a period of time and until you went through a ritual of cleansing. It spoke of the unnaturalness of death originally caused by human disobedience. 

What Elisha is doing here is he’s making himself unclean. It is as if he’s saying give me your death so I can give you my life. I’ll take your uncleanness - you take my life. 

Now if you know the bible.. It’s uncanny. You almost have the sense that the shadow of the cross of Jesus is coming down the centuries. The reason this is here is not that the stretching out mysteriously brings life to the boy. God restores him in response toElisha’s prayer. But the stretching out is a symbol that life can only return through someone taking your death. 

It’s all pointing forward to another son who died -  the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came inorder to take our death, our uncleaness to himself. To die the death that we deserve for us so that we might have his life. To pay death off, to send death away. To defeat death and bring life to the world. 

Life can only return through someone taking death. 

As he stretched himself out on him, the boy’s body grew warm. 35 Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out on him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. Sneezes never sounded so good! Here we come to the last scene. A promised son. A dead Son. Now..

A Risen son. 

36 Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite.” And he did. When she came, he said, “Take your son.” 37 She came in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground. Then she took her son and went out.

It’s an extraordinary miracle isn’t it? What do you make of miracles? Is the bible - 'full of miracles' -  really history? Surely it’s legend?  How can the laws of nature be overturned? 

Well it’s important to state that the Bible isn’t full of miracles. Within the 3000 years of history that the Bible records all the Bibles’ miracles are clustered within 4 crucial periods each of no more than50 years each: The times of Moses, Elijah&Elisha, Daniel, Jesus and the Apostles. So miracles in the scriptures are extra-ordinary. 

But the other thing to say is that when God brings miracles he is not overturning the laws of nature. When God miraculously heals sicknesses or raises the dead ( and if God is God he can do this)  - he is not overturning nature.. He’s overturning the results of the fall. He’s restoring nature, restoring life to the world. A sign of what he will one day complete. 

Death is not natural to the world. It is not the way things are meant to be. Death is the rotten fruit of our fall into sin. But death will not have the worst word. Take your son.. She took her risen son in her arms and went out. God is able to deliver us even from death. 

And that ultimate deliverance takes place in the death and resurrection of the ultimate son. Jesus Christ. In his death Jesus takes upon himself our death, the fruit of our sin. He pays death off fully. He sends death away. And to prove that death has lost its hold - Jesus Christ rises from the dead never to die no more. 

Baptism is the pledge that he did this for us - that he did this for Seth. Jesus died our death that we might have his life - starting now and enduring forever. 

Jesus like a needle pierces the thick tapestry of death breaking through to life on the other side.  We, who receive this gift, any of us who trust Jesus. Like thread through the needle we will be pulled through our death to life beyond. To participate in the new life that Jesus will one day bring to the whole world. 

life - death - resurrection. 

Seth has begun that journey. Joined to Jesus. we pray he will live his whole life trusting in the promised, dead and risen Son. What about you?

1 Kings 21

I wonder what’s your attitude towards the Bible? Have you read all of it? Are some bits better than others? Old testament? New Testament? Is God the same God in each? Aren’t some bits in the Old testament a little extreme? The God of he Old testament. Is the God of the Bible really in charge of the world? No one believes that any more do they? 

Well should they? That’s the first question we’re asking as we continue our series in the book of Kings. Who’s in charge? 

Who’s in charge? 

There are a number of characters and a series of dialogues in this historical episode and we begin with a noble citizen and a greedy King. Noble Naboth, Greedy Ahab. 

Ahab, the King of Israel is enjoying life in his summer palace in Jezreel. the troubled years of drought and famine are a distant memory - 6 years ago. Ahab has been developing his home and wants to extend his gardens and he has approached this man, Naboth, with a request v2 Let me have your vineyard to use for a vegetable garden, since it is close to my palace, and in exchange i will give you a better vineyard or, if you prefer, I will pay you whatever it is worth. It actually sounds a reasonable request and a pretty good deal: A better vineyard in exchange for your old one. Or- name your price. Come on! 

But Naboth replied v3 The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my Fathers. 4 So Ahab went home, sullen and angry because Naboth the Jezreelite had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my ancestors.” He lay on his bed sulking and refused to eat.5 His wife Jezebel came in and asked him, “Why are you so sullen? Why won’t you eat?”6 He answered her, “Because I said to Naboth the Jezreelite, ‘Sell me your vineyard; or if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard in its place.’ But he said, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’”7 Jezebel his wife said, “Is this how you act as king over Israel?

It reminds me of visiting a preschool nursery when my kids were small. one toddler forces another off the trundle truck and then remains fixed to it screaming as the teacher tries to gently lift him off it. Ahab and Naboth look like a couple of squabbling pre-schoolers. 

You’ve got Naboth the pious busybody - ‘the Lord forbid that you should have my land.’ 

I remember driving along the motorway and the carriageways divide and rise up and as you look down there in a sort of island is a farmhouse. the story goes that the owner simply refused to sell up and get out when the motorway was being built. He wouldn’t budge so they built it around him. Is that Naboth? 

And then you’ve got Ahab - the grown up child. His heart gnawed an vexed with frustration at Naboth’s refusal. Throwing his infantile paddy. he wants something and he can't have it and like a spoilt child he goes into a sulk, lying on his bed facing the wall and refusing to come down for dinner.

Actually there’s much more going on here than first meets the eye. Remember who Naboth is standing up to/refusing - The King of Israel. The King of Israel! He asked nicely and Naboth is saying NO! What does he think he’s doing? Well.. what we have here is a clash of authorities. A clash of Kings. Who is in charge? 

See Naboth read the Bible. (The Scriptures they had were the first 5 books of the Bible that we have. the Pentateuch or Torah - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers.) And Naboth had read there things like Numbers 36:7 where God said every Israelite shall keep the land inherited from his forefathers. Or in Deuteronomy where God said to Israel that the land he was providing wasn’t like the land of Egypt that had to be cultivated for food. It would be a land where God provided; a land flowing with milk and honey where you’d gather in the grain and the fruit of the vine. Land wasn’t to be sold. Land was to be a permanent inheritance. And vineyards were not to be turned into vegetable gardens! This was Ahab all over you see. He’d welcomed into Israel foreign powers and foreign gods. Taking Israel back to Egypt; back into slavery spiritually and physically. 

And Naboth says, I will never do it King Ahab, because God says so. 

Naboth is Mr Old School. He’s one of those funny chaps who still really believes in the God of the Bible to the extent that he does what God says. he could have made himself a pretty packet out of this deal. The rising price of land around the summer palace. You can imagine the estate agents hovering like vultures - you can name your price! But no. Naboth really believes that God has revealed himself to Israel; that the God of the Bible is King over all.. He is in charge. 

Well, Ahab went home sullen and angry and not a little disturbed by Naboth’s old school faith. Oh people still worshipped the LORD in Ahab’s multi-faith Israel but the idea of doing everything that God said in the covenant documents - small print and all - that’s not something that Ahab had thought much about since that prophet Elijah had been around 6 years earlier making fireworks on Mount Carmel and calling people back to full covenant obedience. That kind of stuff was for fundamentalists. 

Ahab sulks. He’d set his heart on that vineyard. But interestingly he’s not gonna do anything about it - just sulks on his bed like a teenager. It’s so unfair! Could it be that part of him thinks that the God of the Bible is in charge? That there is a higher lawer than ‘I do as I please’? 

But then, in marches the vicious Queen - Jezebel, the God hater  v7 “Is this how you act as king over Israel? Get up and eat! Cheer up.

Who’s in charge around here. God? You’re the King Ahab. Want to know if God’s the boss? I’ll show you who’s boss.  I’ll get you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.”

And so she did. It was a masterpiece of a frame up. She organises a false accusation against Naboth. Letters in Ahab’s name bearing Ahab’s royal seal to the elders and nobles. “Proclaim a day of fasting that will communicate to the people that God is seriously displeased with Israel for something gather the people and seat Naboth in a prominent place among the people. Have Naboth accused of cursing God and the King with a witness to back up the accusations. Yes Naboth.. Noble Naboth would you beleive it - he is the bad apple that’s poisoning the city. Take him out and stone him to death. 

2 Kings 9 tells us that in his own vineyard Naboth and all his sons perished - the victims of this horrific abuse of power. 

As soon as he is dead, this 6th Century BC Lady Macbeth is inciting her husband to take advantage of the situation. v15. And finally, the child gets up from his bed from where he has watched the whole sordid plot unfold and he gets up to go and get his new toy. 

It’s a grimy tale. they really are a despicable pair. And yet, they are closer to you and me than we would probably care to admit. They are presented to us here in the bible as illustrations of the human heart expressing it’s independence from God. 

The notion that someone else has rights over my life. Someone other than me. That doesn’t sit well with us does it? We say other peoples lives might not be my business. But my life is mine to do with as i please. I’m in charge of my life. Do you see that’s why the idea of a God who is in charge if the world and who’s words must be obeyed is very unpopular. I’ll keeo that at arms length. It’s my life. I choose how to live it. Some people might choose theft with murder. others might choose voluntary work - and both can equally be acts of defiance against God. 

Because he does exist - the story tells us. there is a God who rules with justice. They thought they’d got away with it. Where’s your God now Naboth? 

But God sees 

God sees everything 

Elijah - the prophet has not been seen in Israel for 6 long years - bursts in on Ahab. Ahab chokes on his grapes v20, “So you have found me, my enemy” 

God has seen it all, says Elijah. The way you’ve sold yourself to sin. This is what the Lord says: v19 In the place where dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, dogs will lick up your blood—yes, yours!’”‘I am going to bring disaster on you. I will wipe out your descendants and cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel—slave or free. 22 I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat and that of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have aroused my anger and have caused Israel to sin.’

It is both sobering and chilling to read on into the book of 2 Kings to see each part of God’s judgement unavoidably come to pass. Ahab is killed in battle. Dogs lick up his blood. 

Ahab’s corrupt son Joram takes the throne. But God has chosen a new King for Israel - Jehu, the commander of the army. he’s a nutter, who drives his chariot like a madman. Jehu kills Joram and dumps his body on the ground of Naboth’s vineyard. 

Jezebel is thrown from a window her body trampled by horses and eaten by dogs to deny her a burial. Then Jehu wipes out the whole royal house of Ahab and the entire priesthood of Baal. Tearing down Baal’s temple and the people, the author of 2 Kings 10 tells us, have used it to this day as a latrine. 

God is just. God sees 

I don’t know what you think of God’s judgement? Often people say, i hate the idea. And yet we do cry for justice don’t we? 

I have a friend who was in Bosnia shorthly after the long war there and she met many people in agony after the atrocities done against them - they’d watched loved ones raped and murdered. One woman spoke to my friend after discovering she was a Christian. the woman wanted to know one thing: was God Just? will he deal with the men who had killed her family? And my friend was able to assure. Yes, there is Justice, God will judge with righteousness. But my friend also had to warn her. None of us have lived up to god’s standards of perfection - we’ve all hated, betrayed, caused hurt and waht’s more we have said to the God who is in charge of the world - I refuse to have you as God in charge of me. An act more serious than we can possibly imagine. God is just. He will judge … me

But there’s something more we know from this story. This God who rules with justice is also loving, is also kind. Look at v27 27 When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly. 28 Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: 29 “Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.”

It seems a bit harsh on Ahab’s son - until you see what his life is like. But from this story we see God’s longing is to show compassion, kindness - to find away to justly forgive. Ahab, this horror of a man humbles himself and God is right there at his side. It almost doesn’t seem fair - Ahab deserves all he gets. But God is a God of grace. he loves people. He cares about sin and he must judge it. He will not sweep it under the carpet, judgement must happen. But in love, he diverts some of the judgement from a humbled Ahab. 

In the story there are strong glimmers of what God will do through his son Jesus by his willingly dying on the cross. God diverst his judgement for human sin onto Jesus so that people who humble themselves before God can be freely forgiven. 

Did you see the glimmers of Jesus in the life of Naboth?

A man who lives faithfully by God’s word alone, who is pulled up in front of the elders and nobles of the city, falsely accused by scoundrels for a crime he did not commit, and led like a lamb to the slaughter. 

Whether you are hearing this for the first time or the five thousandth time. Please do not fail to see the extraordinary love of our just and holy God for you. Who is this who gives himself to suffer your judgement for you so that you might go free.

Who is this God?? 

Don’t you want him in charge of your life?

Humble yourself again, and he is right there at your side. Seek his forgiveness and you are clean. Give him back his proper place who’s service is perfect freedom. 

Who’s in charge?

Just as we end I want to take a brief closer look at Naboth and Ahab and their attitude to the word of God, the Bible 

If Naboth is Mr Old School. The Ahab is Mr Cut and paste 

Remember, Ahab is not just anyone. He is part of the people of God - Israel - and more than that he is the King of Israel! The people of God today is the church of Jesus Christ - Christians. So the examples of Ahab and Naboth are in turn a warning and encouragement. 

One of the ways we bring God under our control - sometimes even while we say we are obeying him - is ..we do an Ahab. Mr Cut and Paste. 

Reading the Bible... 'I like that about God, but I don’t like that. I’ll do that but I won’t do that.' Cutting and Pasting Ahab had wandered away from God’s word.  Does it matter? It does. Was God just wasting his breath when he poured out his heart to Israel about how he wanted them to live? Time and again in the Torah God says fix these words in your mind, write them on your doorposts, teach them to your children. Be careful to obey everything i have said. But instead, Ahab was selective. Mr Cut and Paste. 

God said, do not marry outside of my people (he still does say that actually) but in a political move Ahab married a pagan princess and look at the pain that followed. God said don’t have other gods alongside me. But Ahab promoted the worship of other gods alongside the LORD throughout Israel. God said do not covet your neighbours property, do not give false testimony, do not murder.. and Ahab said technically if i’m lying on my bed while it all happens i’m not responsible.. 

Mr Old school, Noble Naboth says this: If God is in charge of the world obey him in everything. Be careful to do everything God has said. If you’re selective about what you want to obey then ultimately you are putting yourself in charge of God. If you’re selective about what you want to believe then actually the God you are serving is not the God of the Bible but a false god. A God of your own making. 

Jesus believed in the whole Bible as the word of God. 'I haven’t come to abolish the OT' he said. It all applies. Not one word of it is going to disappear. 'Man does not live in bread alone buton every word that comes from the mouth of God.'

What’s your attitude to the bible? The Old Testament? Every word. Are you allowing every word from God to shape your knowledge of God? Or are you Mr Cut and Paste? Because we in the church, just like Ahab are under tremendous pressure from the pagan world around us to take scissors to the truth. 

You cannot say Jesus is the only way to God

You cannot say that God will judge people 

You cannot say that homosexual practice is- like all sex outside marriage -always wrong

Our bishops of the Anglican communion continue to state lovingly and clearly that homosexual practice is incompatible with what God has said in the Bible. That’s the position of the church. But there are many dissenting voices among those Bishops and others. 

Now it’s a personal and painful issue. Gay people feel utterly rejected by the church! 

We as a church have said recently that in a culture that idolises sex and romantic relationships, unless the church which idolises marriage and the nuclear family changes to uphold biblical priorities of friendship and christian community - then our call for unmarried people, whether gay or straight, to remain celibate just feels unliveable. 

We need to change as we obey God who says clearly in his word that sex outside of heterosexual marriage is always wrong. 

Bishops and others who, under the prevailing pressure, revise God’s word to say something else .. we have to say that they are the Ahab’s of today. Cutting and pasting God’s word. 

Ahab’s wandering away from the covenant had a disastrous effect on his own life and in the moral life of the nation. From the King down to the elders and nobles who arrange Naboth’s death down to the layabouts who lie in court. Israel has been corrupted by greed. They are a nation of thieves and murderers because the god they worship is not the True God. 

In the same way where the church historically has taken the scissors and prit stick to the Bible - moral corruption follows. It’s the same in our day and age. A church that supports extra marital sex which God says causes pain. A church that accepts all religions as equally valid. It’s just lying to people. 

If in our church and nation, in our generation.. if we’re going to hand on to the next generation the worship of the true God. Then we need to be Naboths. People of faith in an unbelieving world. People of the book. The whole book. Of course we will increasingly look old school. Out of place. People will call us intolerant, narrow minded. We might suffer for the truth. Naboth did. But we mustn’t be moved. Just like Naboth, we serve a higher King. Lovingly and clearly we must keep speaking the truth to one another and where appropriate to the wider church and culture. Like Naboth - we have no other choice. 

1 Kings 19

The book of Kings is a compelling case FOR the true God in an age of many gods and multiple spiritualities. 

It was a history book written to and for the people of God when they were in Exile in Babylon recording the events that had led to the Exile: the decline of the Kings of Israel into idolatry and godlessness. 

The section that we’re looking at is concerned with the reign of Ahab, who married the princess of Sidon, Jezebel, who introduced foreign gods into Israel. Elijah the prophet of God turns up to demonstrate that these gods that promise so much, that we give up the worship or our lives and money and time and energy and hopes, that wound us when they fail us .. These gods - for them the baals, for us the gods of success, power, money, beauty - they are not gods at all. Only the LORD is God. 

The book of Kings warns us and calls us to turn our hearts away from useless, life draining idols back to the singular worship of the living God. 

So who is the true God? What is he like compared with all the idols?

In this chapter we see the way that God deals with Elijah in his despondency and depression. Elijah feels that God has failed him; that he doesn’t know who God is anymore. But God comes again and he treats and corrects Elijah’s depression and in so doing He reveals his Glory.

1. Elijah’s depression and despondency

it’s a rapid decline/fall.  

Elijah has just experienced the power of God in the great victory at Carmel (1 Kings 18).  The prophets of baal had called on their god to bring fire on the sacrifice and nothing happened. Elijah had prayed for fire and fire had come. God had proved his reality and the people, 18v39, fall on their faces and confess that “the LORD is God.” The prophets of Baal are slain as traitors to the nation. It’s something akin to a REVIVAL. Then Elijah prays for rain: the lifting of God’s curse on the land, further evidence of his reality. It hasn’t rained for three years… and the rain comes! 

And Elijah tucks his cloak into his belt and he outruns Ahab’s chariot back to the capital Jezreel. Elijah, a wanted man, an enemy of the state runs to the capital because he expects total victory. Ahab and Jezebel will either repent and come back to the true God, or the people will overthrow them. The gates of Jezreel will swing open to a new dawn. A new age of the Kingdon of God. The worship of Baal eradicated. That’s the completion of the plan. That’s what Elijah expects. 

But he has made a serious miscalculation: Jezebel. If it had been Ahab alone it might have happened. Ahab is a weak man; a go with the flow sort of man. But only one person wears the trousers in this royal household. Only one person controls the war chariots…. and that’s Jezebel. Imagine the scene. Ahab arrives back at the palace soaked to the skin by rain. Jezebel dances down the steps. Surely Baal - storm god, god of the rains - has won! But no, Baal hasn’t sent this rain. Baal is defeated and his prophets slain. We’ve lost, Jezebel. Pahhhh! Jezebel doesn’t lose. She’d got the king, she’d introduced idol worship. She still had her 400 prophets of Asherah. Where are the prophets of the LORD? She’s slaughtered them. And she gives her word to Elijah, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” 

The plan has failed. Nothing has changed. Jezebel has not changed.. there’s no uprising. 

The shock of this failure, the crushing disappointment for Elijah… is like the straw the breaks the camels back. Suddenly this man of faith is knocked off his spiritual moorings.                                     He who had the courage to face Ahab and the prophets of Baal is suddenly overwhelmed with fear. He who knows and listens for and acts upon the word of God ..listens to and acts upon the voice of Jezebel. And he runs. 

Disappointment has led to instability which leads to fear which leads to flight…which leads to anger and bitterness.

He goes to Beersheba. Dan to Beersheba denotes the furthest most points of the promised land. (From lands end to John O Groats.) This was the land of blessing. Stay in the land said God and you will be blessed. And Elijah who knows the word of God. Leaves the land! 

He sends his servant back. Elijah had a servant not because he was rich but because he was a prophet. This is his PA. He’s firing his staff. ‘I’m out of the ministry.’ he’s saying 

And he goes on into the wilderness and he falls down and he prays that he might die. ‘I have had enough Lord.’ ‘This is too much for me.’ Anger.. bitterness.. disobedience..despair. 

An angel comes and tends him - we’ll think about this in a moment - and he has the energy to journey to Horeb where Elijah makes his threefold complaint. 

Where were you God? 

I have no friends.  

and 

I don’t know who you are anymore God! 

Those 3 things: 

I’ve been very zealous for the LORD -i fulfilled my part of the plan, where were you God?

I am all alone - I don’t have a friend in the world

And I don’t know who you are anymore God! That statement is implicit in his journey to Horeb, the mountain of God, 40 days and 40 nights a mountain better known as Sinai. Where he went into literally ‘THE cave,’ or better translated ‘THE cleft in the rock.’ THE very place that Moses came to in Exodus 34 when he said to God.. ‘I need to know who you are!’ and God put him in the cleft in the rock and passed by

Where were you God? 

I have no friends 

I don’t know who God is anymore. 

I can’t tell you the number of times i’ve heard these statements from disappointed, despondent believers. I’ve thought and said them myself.. 

Elijah’s dsepondency 

But secondly.. what then is beneath/the cause of Elijah’s deep despairing depression and oppression? What might be beneath ours? God begins to treat the causes, he becomes doctorand pastor to Elijah, so we’ll see what are the causes of Elijah’s depression. Which will be instructve for us about ourselves and also about God himself. 

the first thing that God does is he sends an angel. 

and what does that angel do? does he say, ‘fear not’? No; does he say ‘i bring you good tidings?’ no; does he say ‘repent!”? no; does he say ‘do you wanna talk about it?”? NO! 

what does God do first? He cooks! 

He touches elijah. He reflects back - ‘you’re tired’ 

He listens 

What are you doing here Elijah? God’s questions are not to give him information. As if God doesn’t know. God’s questions are to give you information. Elijah rants. God listens

here are some of the natural causes of Elijah’s depression: 

physical exhaustion: he’s been on the run for three years. he’s spent himself in the great high of Carmel. he’s been like a tightly pulled spring that has just stretched and stretched until it snaps. He’s exhausted. Burned out. And before he needs a lecture or advice or even prayer .. he needs a rest and good food and a walk on the beach. 

there are psychological causes: why are you here Elijah. Elijah speaks and God listens. Someties you just need to be listened to; to listen to yourself. 

there are relational causes: I’m the only one left! God sends an angel because Elijah needs a gentle cheerful friend. Have you ever heard of a melancholy angel? Elijah’s companions had all been melancholics hadn’t they? the ravens at the Kerith ravine, the widow, obadiah, his servant who had to be sent back again and again to look for the rain. Melancholics tend to flock together - we understand each other. But if you are someone of a melancholic disposition you need a couple of gentle cheerful friends. 

Look at the way God attends to the whole person. Before he speaks about spiritual issues or sin or prayer. God wisely addresses the physical, psycholgical, relational. What a God our Creator is. 

See depression and despondency in the believer - we need to make some distinctions - can have natural and spiritual causes.. and can also have sinful or holy causes. 

To be depressed as a christian is not wrong. it doesn’t imply a lack of faith in fact it may be an evidence of faith. 

Take Jesus for example - there were moments in his life when he was deeply depressed. teh most obvious being in the garden of gethsemane when the language that is used is that of deep darkness overwhelming, life threatening sorrow as Jesus contemplated the horror of the cross. The depths of human sin that he was about to carry for us. Sin is serious and awful poisoning our lives and our world and to mourn over our own sin and a world outside of Christ is indeed a holy melancholy. the christian life is a war it is not happy happy happy. It’s sometimes about profound sorrow co-existing with profound hope.

Elijah’s melancholy …was a mixture

God addressed first the natural, understandable causes which were basically neutral, maybe godly.. now God comes to the spiritual causes and exposes Elijah’s sin 

The passing by of God in mount Sinai is bookended by Elijah’s complaint. I was zealous.. the plan worked - where were you God. I’m all alone. I don’t know who you are. Bookended by the complaint .. so the passing is the answer to the complaint 

God tells Elijah, v11 to come out and stand on the mountain before the LORD. But we know from v13 that Elijah didn’t or couldn’t come beyond the mouth of the cave. he stays insie the ROCK. And it’s just as well that he does because …

a hurricane comes down .. like the one we have seen wreaking destruction on that poor island of haiti this week. a wind that breaks pieces off that rock in which Elijah hides. And after the wind an earthquake - shaking the earth ..splitting the rock in which elijah hides. And after the earthquake a fire - rolling, billowing, consuming flames, lighting up the cave with intense heat scorching the rock in which elijah hides. 

The statements that God was not in the earthquake wind and fire does not mean that he was not behind them. They weren’t just a just chance occurences. Neither does it mean that God is never in these things. At the burning bush God appeared as fire. At Sinai an earthquake signalled is presence and at pentecost he showed up in the wind. These are all ways that God appears and reveals his glory. And in this instance they teach us that before such a powerful, glorious, HOLY and PURE God, sinful human beings cannot stand. we would be broken to pieces, split apart, consumed.

And yet God was not in these things, we are told, presumably because he was in the still small voice that followed. That brought Elijah out from the cleft in the rock to stand before the living God. 

What is happening here? What is God teaching here? 

He’s teaching Elijah.. He’s teaching us … the gospel. 

What is the gospel: 

You are more sinful than you ever dared believe ..but

You are more loved than you ever dared hope 

See, what is the cleft in the rock? or rather who is the rock? 

Hundreds of years later 3 of Jesus closest disciples followed Jesus up a mountain and there they saw him transfigured, they saw his divine glory and they saw Jesus in conversation with 2 figures.. one was Moses .. the other Elijah .. and they spoke to Jesus, On the mountain about HIS death. 

You and I are more sinful than we ever dared believe. Because of our sins we cannot stand before the earthquake, wind and fire of God’s holiness. And so God hides us in the cleft of the rock. On his cross, in his death, Jesus shields us. He our rock, reaps the wind and is broken for us, He, our rock is shaken and split apart for us. He our rock, is scorched and consumed in the flames. So that we might get the still small voice of grace. 

You are more sinful than you ever dared believe and more loved and accepted in Christ than you ever dared hope. 

But what finally does this have to do with Elijah’s despondency? What has this got to do with our disappointent with God? 

Remember Elijah’s complaint? 

I have been very zealous 

Now i’m the only one left  

Here’s Elijah’s problem. I wonder if it’s mine or yours? 

he’s forgotten the gospel. He’s shrunk Sin and Grace 

Regarding himself - He’s far too optimistic -

Regarding God - He’s far too pessimistic -

Elijah thinks way to highly of himself. I have been very zealous. My plan worked. Where were you God?

Elijah thinks to way too lowly of God - i’m the only one left - the plan is gone. You don’t love me God. You don’t care. You didn’t keep your side of the plan God. You didn’t give me what I deserve. 

But God, the god of earthquake wind and fire says, Elijah - don’t put me in a box. Why are you here Elijah? Why do you think so highly of yourself that you know all? Why do you think so lowly of me that as soon as your plan doesn’t work - i have failed?? 

I’ve not let you down Elijah. Your plan let you down and you’ve wrongly identified me with your plan. 

I do have a plan Elijah v15. The next stage will involve Hazael and Jehu and Elisha and you Elijah if you’ll get over thinking you’re the only one left. I do have a plan Elijah - it’s just it’s not your plan. 

We are too often like babies who scream at their parents when they are taken for innoculations, you know, those injections to protect them from disease. Hey!!!!! This is not the plan! The plan is I cry and you hug me or feed me or change my nappy. how dare you do this!! How dare you hurt me!!! You don’t love me! Waaaaah! Like babies with their parents, so we are with God. We can never see or comprehend the full, detailed, good plans of God for his world, for our lives. they will always be beyond us a mystery to us. 

We should be very skeptical of our own plans for what God should do in our lives. Because we, sinful as we are, will almost certainly be making God a god of our making, forging God as just another idol who will let us down and wound us when the plans fail. No Let God tell us who he is. Let God be God. And be thankful for God’s supreme wisdom and his undoubtable love. he loves us, he is with us, he’s in charge, he never takes his eyes off us. 

What a perspective to lift us from despondency. 

Sorry Lord for how stupid i can be. Stop me blaming you. Give it up. Thank you for your love. 

1 Kings 18

This is the second in a series of nine sermons charting a crucial period in biblical history: the lives and ministries of the prophets Elijah and Elisha during the reign of Ahab and Jezebel who had led Israel away from the knowledge of God to worship idols. 

Elijah and Elisha are radical examples of people of FAITH IN AN AGE OF UNBELIEF. People who know God’s words, pray God’s words, act upon God’s words - that’s what God calls us to be and do. 

God in his grace will will not leave his people to suffer in bondage to mute idols. he will shatter our idols and show himself to be the true God. It will hurt us but it might just save us. How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him. 

You may remember the story of Daniel James. He loved to play rugby. He’d represented England at junior levels and a promising career lay ahead of him until an accident in training left him paralysed from the neck down. After several of his own attempts, his family took him to mainland europe to be assisted in his suicide. he had lived to play rugby and died age 23 

Or pehaps you know of the woman who had experienced periods of poverty as she grew up. As an adult she was so eager for financial securitythat she passed over many good prospective relationships in order to marry a wealthy man who she did not really love. This led to an early divorce and to all theeconomic struggles she feared so much. 

After the global economic crisis began in 2008, there followed a string of suicides of formerly wealthy and well connected individuals. The inconsolable despair that comes from losing the ultimate source of your meaning or hope. The problem of idolatry. 

The contest at Carmel; the baal worship, the shouting, the dancing, the slashing with knives, the blood that flowed, the fire that consumed the sacrifice. It all seems so far removed from 21st London and yet ..human beings do not really change and thankfully neither does the God who is known in the fire falling on the sacrifice. 

Let’s start by thinking about idol worship. 

The worship of the Baals. 

vv17-19 When Ahab saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?” 18 “I have not made trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and have followed the Baals. 19 Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

The arrangements for the contest are made and agreed upon. The name of the respctive gods will be called upon. the god who answers will fire to burn up the sacrifice he is God. So the prophets of Baal, v26 go first. they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.27 At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” 28 So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. 29 Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice.

Idol worship in Ahab and Jezebel’s New Israel is incredibly well resourced isn’t it? Elijah feels like he is the only one of the LORD’s prophets left v22 because Jezebel has been killing off the LORD’s prophets 18v4. but there are 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah, Jezebel’s god of choice. We said last week that the particular Baal that it is thought was being worshipped in Israel was the fertilty Baal, god of rain and life. That’s why the LORD, in answer to Elijah’s prayer sends drought upon the land and gives life to Elijah and the widow and the widows dead son where the baal cannot. But actually 18v18 there were multiple baals. Baal was not a single god but a generic name meaning ‘spiritual lord or master’ The pagans had hundreds of baals: beauty baals, success baals, wisdom baals, military baals. Anything ..anything could be a baal. 

You see the ancient pagans knew something; admitted something that our modern secular culture just will not admit and that is that human beings are unavoidably religious. Our hearts crave meaning and fulfilment and we will devote the worship of our time, our money, thoughts, hopes, dreams to whichever ‘god’ has captured our trust be that career success, a perfect relationship, a dream future..

We dance for our god - we work ourselves into the ground, we give our lives, we perform. And when the god fails to deliver what we so deseperately need - as it inevitably will fail - then we slash ourselves….

Listen to this quote from someone called Mary Bell who is a counsellor who works with high-level executives. She’s speaking about achievement and success but she could easily be speaking about beauty or relationships..

Achievement, she says, is the alcohol of our time. These days the best people don’t abuse alcohol. They abuse their lives… You’re successful, so good things happen. You complete a project and you feel dynamite. The feeling doesn’t last forever, and you slide back to normal.. But you love the feeling of euphoria so you’ve got to have it again. The problem is you can’t stay on that high. Say you’re working on a deal and it doesn’t get approved. Your self esteem is on the line, because you’vebeen gathering your self worth externally. Eventually in this cycle, you drop to the pain level more and more often. The highs don’t seem quite so high. You may win a deal that’s even bigger than the one that got away, but somehow that deal doesn’t take you to euphoria. next time you don’t even get back to normal, because you’re so desperate about clinching the next deal… An achievement addict is no different from any other kind of addict..

The greatest cruelty of counterfeit gods is that they just don’t deliver the things that we so desperately need. they let us down. we invest so much and they deliver us nothing because they are no god at all. we lean on them for things that they were never designed to deliver - meaning and fulfilment - and they collapse under the weight of our expectations.. God in his mercy shows up the emptiness of our idols that we might turn away from them.. be done with them.. 

27 At noon Elijah began to taunt the propehts of Baal “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy (literally - on the toilet), or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” 28 So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. 29 Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.

No one. 

These are not gods. There’s nothing there. And yet these good things. The desire for security, satisfaction, success, beauty when they enter into our souls and become ultimate things they take on a kind of spiritual authority. They master us.. 

What will break that addiction?

2. You have to see the God who is made known in fire falling on the sacrifice. 

He has to win your affections so that you will follow him exclusively and wholeheartedly. 

30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. 31 Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.” 32 With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed. 33 He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”

34 “Do it again,” he said, and they did it again.

“Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time. 35 The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.

36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. 37 Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”

38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

39 When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”

Elijah has the sacrifice doused with water - he stacks the odds against himself. He wants it to be beyond doubt that this is the LORD - he rules out any accusation that this could be some kind oftrick or illusion where he surrepticiously drops a match on dry tinder. The flames fall and consume everything!

It’s an extraordinary and alarming miracle isn’t it? Look at the reaction of the people! We said last week that miracles are not, contrary to popular opinion, commonplace in the Bible. They occur only at very specific times. times of crisis. Like this time when the knowledge of the LORD is in peril. He acts to turn hearts back to himself by making himself known. 

But look at the very specific way that God makes himself known here. To win hearts back to himself. Notice the nature of the contest that Elijah sets up. It’s not just a competition to see who’s God is bigger. It’s to see who’s God provides and accepts a sacrifice. Elijah in v30 repairs and rebuilds the altar of the Lord that had been torn down. And it is at the time of sacrifice v36 that Elijah prays. And the fire of the Lord falls upon the sacrifice.  

God accepts a sacrifice to pay for the sins of the people.To provide their forgiveness and open up the way for repentance - for them to turn their hearts back to him and follow him. 

God is made known in the fire falling on the sacrifice. 

At the end of the gospel of Luke chapter 9 .. Jesus is spitefully rejected by a small samaritan village and his incensed disciples say, “Lord, Do you want us to call down fire from heaven (do an Elijah) to destroy them” And Jesus we are told rebukes his disciples. But then a few chapters later in Luke 12:49 Jesus says this. “I have come to bring fire on the earth and how i wish it was already kindled but - and here’s the very next verse - I have a baptism to undergo and how distressed I am until it is completed.” Jesus is going to call down fire on the earth, do an elijah, call down the righteous judgement of God deserved by all who have rejected him and run after false gods.. But here’s the shock - Jesus will call down the fire upon himself - the baptism - the immersion in the flames - he will undergo for US.  He is the sacrifice. he will be consumed that we might be forgiven. That we might turn our hearts back to the living God. 

This is our God. 

Every other god demands that you lay down your life, that you shed your blood for it. 

Here is the true God.. and he lays down his life, and he sheds his blood for you 

Jesus is the only LORD that if you find him can truly fulfil you and if you fail him can truly forgive you. 

So, why do you waver between two opinions? if the LORD is God follow him, if Baal is God follow him. 

If the message of Kings is that the LORD is God in a culture full of idols 

Then the application of Kings is to exercise Elijah-like faith in age of unbelief. Love and obey God. Put him first in all things. You can’t waver between two opinions. You can’t sit on the fence says Elijah. 

Or as Jesus put it in Matthew 5. You can’t serve two masters, either you hate one and love the other or you’re devoted to one and despise the other.

God and idols are diametrically opposed. Jesus uses the example of Mammon. The god that can be worshipped with our money. You cannot serve both God and mammon.  Like all spiritual Lord’s mammon, greed, covetousness masters us. And mammon hates God’s ways. Mammon hates that God’s ministers should be provided for so that the gospel would be heard, Mammon hates that the hungry should be fed, the sick made well. So Mammon plays on our affections, calls for our worship, consumes our money. And as our income grows – so our spending grows and we buy bigger (and more) houses, newer (and more) cars, fancier (and more) clothes, better (and more) meat and all manner of trinkets and gadgets and containers and devices and equipment to make life more fun. While the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, unfed millions remains unalleviated. 

If mammon is god, follow him. But if the LORD is God….

You have to know your idols.. and you have to put them to the sword before they kill you. 

And thanks be to God there is a way back to the true God, through repentance and forgiveness because the fire fell on the sacrfiice for us. And so follow the LORD wholeheartedly. Put him first. Put your relationship with him first. Put his people, the church, first. Listen to his word and pray his word and act upon his word. And you will know life.. 

“We have left everything to follow you!” Peter says to jesus in Mark 10 v28 and Jesus replies 29 “Truly I tell you no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.

1 Kings 17

Today we’re starting a new 9 week series of sermons in the Old Testament. The Old Testament sometimes gets bad press. With its violence and angry God it’s just too difficult and unpalateable. But I think if we look closer we will find these objections to be unfounded. the God of the Old testament is the same God as the God of the New Testament revealed in Jesus. The God who gets involved. A God of justice and mercy. A God of faithfulness and truth. 

In fact we need to keep in mind that the Old and New Testaments constitute one book. We will neither fully understand the story of God’s redeeming grace in the world nor will we see the fulness of who Jesus is unless we read the Old Testament. Jesus said that All of Scripture, the whole Bible, is about HIM! 

Now the books of 1 and 2 Kings are history books. They chart the reigns and moral decline of the Kings of Israel over a period of 370 years. Kings and their sins. But one quarter of the books of Kings, from 1 Kings 17 to 2 Kings 10 slows down and focuses in on a period of 70 years or so and on the activities of 2 crucial figures. The prophets Elijah and Elisha. 

This was the period when King Ahab was on the throne of Israel and his rule signified an absolute moral low point in the times of the Kings. The kind of moral touchstone for all Kings was whether they ‘walked in the ways of their forefather King Jeroboam son of Nebat.' Look at how Ahab is described in 1 Kings 16 v30 Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. 31 He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. 32 He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. 33 Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him.

So the ministries of Elijah and Elisha take place at a time of National apostasy. The nation under Ahab and Jezebel has abandoned the knowledge of the Lord, the God of Israel to worship idols. 

Baalism was basically a nature religion. Baal was the god of fertility, the rider of teh storms, his voice heard in the thunder. The natural cycle of the year was taken up into the stories of the canaanite gods. In the dry season Baal was briefly defeated by the God Mot but them Baal’s consort would arise and - effected by the worship of the people with shrine prostitutes - Baal’s union with his consort would defeat Mot and once again bring rain and life to the land. 

The abandonment of God the creator in Israel led to the worship of these idols and the accompanying moral behaviour. 

Over the last two weeks in the talks we have heard here on the subject of Truth we’ve heard that having liberated ourselves from the old belief in God our culture finds itself floating in space with no touchstone for morals. meaning or identity worshipping our idols of consumerism, celebrity, pleasure in our desperate search for satisfaction, significance and security. We, like Israel, live in an age of Unbelief. 

The book of Kings came to it’s original recipients - Israel in Exile in Babylon - and comes to us as an appeal. A gracious demonstration of the absolute reliability and supremacy of the God of Israel, the God revealed in Jesus as against the impotency of idols to give us the life we need. To give rain on our parched souls. 

God, we will see, always delivers on his promises. God says he will do things - that’s the bible - and he does them. 

What would it be like if a person like you or me took God’s promises - everything he says - at face value; believed God’s promises, prayed God’s promises; acted upon God’s promises? That’s Elijah and Elisha. They take the LORD at his word and blessing and spiritual authority and grace and the extraordinary provision of God is available to them. 

These sermons will be about FAITH IN AN AGE OF UNBELIEF. That is what this section of the Bible is about. That is what God is seeking to grow in us. 

We will never fully be like Elijah and Elisha. the New Testament makes clear that Elijah foreshadows John the Baptist because he, just like John, prepares the way for another prophet, Elisha. But really Elijah and Elisha are types of Christ, they point us to Jesus. And yet God wants to build our trust and excitement and conviction about him that we would be effective people of faith in an age of unbelief, stretching ourselves out for others.. 

So let’s see how that works in today’s passage 

And here we see three episodes and 4 miracles                                                                             Elijah’s answered prayer - no rain; The provision of food at the Keith Ravine;  The provision of food through the widow's never ending jar of oi and bag of flour; and the raising of the widows son 

In these miracles we see the LORD God demonstrating in an age of Apostasy that he is the living God who provides. He confronts Baal and ALL idols and he shows them to be impotent. False gods. lifeless. these are NOT the things that bring us life. Only God. Only Jesus brings life.    

In these miracles we also see the courageous growing faith of Elijah. Growing because God is testing and training that faith in his servant as God always does with us to make us more effective for him in the adventures he calls us to 

episode 1 vv1-6

We’re introduced to Elijah. And the first thing we notice is that Elijah is a nobody from nowhere. He has no titles, no background it seems, no qualifications to be spoken of. He’s a nobody. The writer searches around for something to say about Elijah and all he can come up with is that Elijah is a Tishbite from Tishbe. Which is like saying that you are a Dalstonite from Dalston except that Dalston is very much somewhere whereas Tishbe was nowhere - not even locateable on a map. Here’s the thing: God doesn’t use somebodies from somewhere. He uses nobodies from nowhere. So that - we won’t ever make the fatal error of thinking that salvation can come from human pedigree or strength or goodness. No, God uses the weak, so that we’ll know that we depend on him for everything. So … if you are weak, if you are flawed .. you are in exactly the right place for God to use you. 

Elijah may be weak but he knows he is loved by Almighty God. ‘Whom i serve’ there in v1 is better translated ‘before whom i stand.’ Elijah knows he’s accepted and loved by God - that gives him great courage. AND Elijah knows and believes God’s promises (Faith). Elijah knew his Bible and he knew God’s solemen promises in the book of Deuteronomy that if God’s people were faithful they would know blessing in the land - rain, fruit.. But if they were unfaithful and turned away from the living God to worship idols God wouldn’t let them run into destruction forever he would intervene and they would know curse in teh land - drought. famine 

Elijah takes God at his word. And he comes to the seat of power - into great Ahab’s presence - and he declared the word of the Lord “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”

Do you see the nature of God’s merciful judgement? No rain no dew no crops no life. It’s a direct challenge to baal the fertility god, the rider of the storms the provider of rain and life. God will not let us languish in bondage to mute idols. he will shatter our idols. It will hurt but it might just save us. 

Here then from Elijah is a lesson in prayer. Listen to James 5 from the new Testament. v16b The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.17 Elijah was a human being, just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 

What is the prayer of a righteous person that is powerful and effective? It is prayer inline with God’s word. Suing God for his promises and it is prayer confronting the idols of the unbelieving age which keep people in bondage. 

v2 Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: 3 “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4 You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.”5 So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

Elijah flees for his life. he is sent into hiding by God away from Ahab’s death squads. And here’s the second miracle building Elijah’s faith. Rewarding him with the blessing of divine provision. Bread and meat. Morning and evening. Not by Uber eats or deliveroo but by Raven.  

Elijah comes to know the reality of Psalm 23 That Even though i walk through the valley of death … you, God prepare a banquet for me in the presence of my enemies .. my cup overflows."         You know, if you never step out on the risky adventure of trusting God’s word then you’ll never discover how he is sufficient when you trust him. that he is ALL you need. Your idols cannot provide. Why do you serve them. Throw them away make God your God. Serve him. Put him first in every aspect of your life. Here his word and do it and you will find yourself in a totally different world. “We have left everything to follow you!” Peter says to jesus in Mark 10 v28 and Jesus replies 29 “Truly I tell you no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.

Episode 2 vv7-16

Look at this: Elijah’s water source - the brook - dries up in the drought and though presumably meat and bread keeps arriving morning and evening by express raven, God does not provide miraculous water for Elijah. he takes him into a time of dryness and affliction in order to stretch his faith again and move him on. And he sends him beyond the border of Israel to Zarephath in Sidon to beg food and rink from a vulnerale widow who is preparing her last meal for her and her son from the last of their meagre food - a handful of flour a drop of oil - before she expects them to die. The famine has extended beyond Israel and remarkably at a time when God’s own people have abandoned God to worship idols, an idolatrous foreigner trusts the word of God from Elijah’s mouth. v14 Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. …For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”

And incredibly she does what Elijah asks and it is as he says. 

And so this weak, vulnerable household of a widow, her son and an asylum seeker are provided for in the midst of a punishing famine by another daily miracle! the jar od flour is never used up, the jug of oil never runs dry! 

PAUSE for a second totalk about miracles (because in our next episode we are going to witness a raising of the dead!) 

A few things to say: 

Miracles are by definition extraordinary. that sounds obvious but the reason i say it is because tere have been times in church history when some have claimed that miracles should be ordinary for christians “throughout the bible we see miracles. Elijah was a person just like us. God wants us to work miracles!” 

Let me answer that. God wants us to pray for healing, for people to become christians, for idols to fall, for his kingdom to come. But miracles are not the normal way in which God operates in his world. Actually in the course of 3000 years of biblical miracles are extraordinary. All teh miraces of the bible are clustered within 4 short periods each of 20-60 years. 4 short periods - the miracles of moses in the Exodus. Elijah and Elisha here. Daniel and his friends during the Exile. and Jesus and the Apostles. 4 periods of kingodm necessity when God stepped in to preserve or advance his kingdom. So miracles are not the norm. they’re specific to these tines - defending the kingdom of God making invasions into the kingdom of darkness 

That’s exacltly what God is doing through Elijah here. Notice again where God has sent Elijah? To Zarephath in Sidon. Does Sidon ring a bell? 16v31 Ahab not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.  

Sidon was the home turf of Baalism. The king of Sidon had Baal in his name! God sends Elijah into teh enemies own back yard! God feeds his prophet through one of Sidon’s own daughters in Baal’s own fertile land that God has struck with famine and drought. God has floored Baal with one punch and placed a blazing beacon of his saving reality in the heart of Sidonian darkness. Isn’t it brilliant? 

Don’t you see that he is the true provider? the Sovereign Lord. Not your idols! 

God sends his servants into the heart of darkness, the enemy’s stronghold, the lions mouth inorder to demolish the enemy’s power. 

Jesus entered the ultimate darkness, the enemy’s ultimate stronghold .. the consequence of all our sin .. he entered death for US ALL. A pure innocent taking the place of billions. He carried death for us to pay death off. To break death’s power. To win us life! (won’t you trust him?) 

which brings us to our final episode. Elijah’s greatest test yet.                                                           Episode 3.  the death and resurrection of the son vv17-24

7 Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. 18 She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”

19 “Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. 20 Then he cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” 21 Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”

The tragic death of the boy reflects the death of the lamd under God’s curse. Death that Baal, god of fertility and life, is doing nothing about. Wake up Baal! It’s time for the rains. The circle of life. Time to defeat Mot. Unite with your consort and do it!! But no. Our idols can do nothing about our ultimate enemy death. That’s why we don’t think about death isn’t it. 

By now we know that Baal is nothing. baal is on the canvas, Baal is out for the count. the LORD, the God and Father of Jesus Christ. He provides but can he bring life from the grave? 

v22 The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. 23 Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!” 24 Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.” 

Wonderful, Remarkable 

The woman knows v18 that we are all sinners and that sin leads to a debt and we pay that debt with our lives. But God answers our cry for mercy and life and because Jesus, the innocent has destroyed death by paying for sin in our place. God is the God who brings life from the grave. 

The boy rises back to life. We will all rise forward to new Life in Christ our Lord.

So there it is. God calling us to faith in an age of Unbelief and idolatry. Calling us to his service.

Elijah stretched himself out over the boy because he believed that God is the Living God who would stretch out his arms for us. 

Knowing the power and love of the Lord before whom you stand will you go into enemy territory and live by his word and stretch yourself out for the sake of others?