When have you experienced a miracle? When have you experienced or witnessed God’s
power?
Today, we’re looking at 2 Kings 4:1-6:7. There are several wonderful stories in these
verses about Miracles and about God’s Power. Elisha
helps, awakens a boy, feeds, heals leprosy, floats iron.
When we walk away from our time together today, I want
you to know God miraculously glorifies
Himself through willing servants. We
have a lot to cover and think about today.
Let’s begin with prayer.
Holy Father, would
you provide the time to engage this material today? We ask that your Word would change us, and
stretch us, and mold us, and arm us for spiritual battle. May we think more like Jesus Christ when our
time together is done today. It’s in His
matchless name we pray. Amen.
Originally, I think I had five divisions for this set of
verses. Then four. Then I started typing out my content and
thought I could squeeze it into three.
I’d like to get it to two so I could improve my Subject Sentence, but
we’re going to stick with three divisions for right now:
1.Elisha helps a widow pay debts, awakens a Shunammite’s
son, feeds stew to prophets, and 100 men with 20 barley loaves (2 Kings 4)
2.Elisha tells Naaman to wash in the Jordan, and he is
healed of leprosy (2 Kings 5)
3.Elisha floats an iron axhead (2 Kings 6:1-7)
Let’s get started.
I don’t want to get caught up in too many of the details we could
discuss in these verses. I want us to
focus on the miraculous, so let’s take the story at face value and concentrate
on the displays of God’s power. There
are several great opportunities to study about the culture of the time, so feel
free to make some notes and look those things up on your own later.
Read 2 Kings 4:1-7.
In our first miracle, the wife of one of the company of prophets
cried out to Elisha that her husband was dead and the creditor was coming to
take her two sons as slaves. This would
have been devastating for her and her boys.
The breadwinner was dead. She
would have relied on her sons to take care of her. Since the creditor was coming to take her
sons as slaves, this leads me to believe that her sons may have been too young
to work and provide a living that could help settle the debt. She would have been destitute and would have
had to go to desperate measures to make a living for herself just to survive,
and her sons would have been slaves.
Life can be devastating at times, can’t it?
Elisha asked how he could help. What did she have in her house? She replied that she had a small jar of olive
oil. In other words, not much from her
perspective. But, we’re about to see
that God can work miracles with “not much”!
Elisha tells her to ask all her neighbors for empty jars, not just a
few. He’s telling her to get as many
jars as she possibly can. Then go inside
and shut the door. Pour the oil into the
jars, and as each is filled, put it aside.
She left and did this. Her sons
brought the jars, and she kept pouring.
When all the jars were full, the oil stopped flowing. She went back to the man of God and he told
her to sell the oil, pay her debts, and live on the rest.
Can you imagine being this widow? Can you imagine pouring the oil and maybe
feeling silly pouring from this tiny jar…until it FILLED a larger jar…and
another…and another…? Seeing this
miracle – the actual multiplication of oil – was for the widow and her sons
alone. The neighbors were asked to
participate by providing jars, but they didn’t witness the miraculous pour! In Scripture, we see that oil is
representative of the Holy Spirit, so I’d like to paint a picture for you: This scene reminds me that we need to seek
God individually for ourselves, not just in concert. It’s not enough to go to church and let your
pastor pour into you spiritually to get you through the week. You must seek God for yourself. Spend time with Him so He can grow your faith
and give you wisdom, faith, hope and love to pour into others. As you empty yourself by pouring into others,
He will keep filling you up! He will
fill as long as you are prepared to be filled.
Read 2 Kings
4:8-37.
Our second story actually contains two miracles linked by
a tragedy. A wealthy woman in Shunem met
Elisha and urged him to stay for a meal.
Whenever he passed through the area, he would stop in with her to
eat. She recognized Elisha as a man of
God and spoke with her husband about making a small room for him to stay in
whenever he came through. This reminds
me of how Jesus had friends like Lazarus and Martha and Mary, who would offer
their hospitality whenever He was in Bethany.
The Shunammite woman and her husband were blessed with a
child. I call that the first
miracle. We now fast forward through
this child’s life to a tragic moment where the boy suddenly dies. In faith, his mother carries the boy to the
man of God’s room at her house and goes to the man of God for help. God does not use Elisha’s servant, Gehazi, to
awaken the boy. God uses Elisha to bring
him back to life. Hallelujah! I am really enjoying looking for parallels
between Jesus’ ministry and Elisha’s.
Jesus raised several people from the dead: Lazarus, Jairus’ 12 year old
daughter, and a young man who was being carried in his funeral procession.
In both of these stories, mothers were given back their
sons! Isn’t God wonderful to give us the
deepest desires of our hearts? We’re not
quite done with this chapter. We’re
about to witness another “resurrection.”
This time, it’s not a boy, but a pot of stew!
Read 2 Kings 4:38-41.
So there is a famine.
And Elisha is meeting with the sons of the prophets in Gilgal and he
instructs his servant to cook a large pot of stew. One of them went to gather herbs to put in
the stew. Scripture says they found
gourds and cut them into the stew, not knowing what they were. They may have been trying to bulk up the stew
to feed more people since it was during a famine. I know when things have been sparse, I’ve
done what I could to stretch what ingredients I’ve had. Anyway, the gourds were apparently
poisonous. This was discovered when they
started to eat the stew. Elisha healed
the stew with some flour and they were able to eat.
The last few verses of the chapter continue with our famine/food
theme.
Read 2 Kings
4:42-44.
A man brought 20 loaves of barley bread, and Elisha told
them to give it to the people to eat.
His attendant asked if he was to set 20 loaves in front of 100 men? Elisha told him that the Lord said to give
them the bread, and that there would be left overs. This miracle is so reminiscent of Jesus, isn’t
it? Feeding 100 men with 20 loaves of
barley bread points so beautifully to what Christ will do in feeding the 5000
and the 4000! God cares so much about
our needs. I wonder how many basket of
leftover bread there were.
I saw several principles in this chapter of
Scripture. I would appreciate your
comments if you see other principles in this chapter that I did not
mention. Here are mine:
P1. God meets
needs and exceeds expectations through His people.
P2. Sometimes God
allows tragedy so His glory can be seen and experienced.
P3. God protects
people and multiplies resources.
Who do you run to when you need help? How has God met your needs or exceeded your
expectations this week? How are you
expecting Him to meet your needs if you are still waiting? How has He used you to meet the needs of
another?
With regard to the filling of the jars with olive oil
miracle: What sorts of “jars” is God
bringing you to pour into? Are you
looking to God and asking Him to “bring you one more” to pour into (either in
discipleship or evangelism)?
How are you revealing Christ to the world with your
hospitality? How have you been blessed
by God through your hospitality? Who do
you run to when tragedy strikes, and why do you run to them? With whom do you want to share your joys and
triumphs, and why?
Thinking about the famine, the pot of stew and the
multiplication of bread, how have you experienced God’s protection? How have you seen God generously multiply
resources?
Now let’s look at Elisha’s involvement with a
high-ranking official of Aram.
Read 2 Kings 5:1-19.
So, Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram
was a great man in the sight of his master, the king. He was well respected because the Lord gave
victory to Aram through him. He was a
valiant soldier. But there’s one little
problem with him. He had leprosy. I’m sure, to Naaman, that didn’t seem like a
little problem!
Anyway, his wife had a servant girl who had been captured
from Israel. And this servant girl
mentioned to her mistress that Naaman should seek out the prophet in Samaria
who would cure him of his leprosy. This
is huge to me! I can’t imagine being
captured in a raid and taken from my home and my people, and desiring to help
the people I serve, who took me away from all that. This speaks volumes about the heart of the
girl! I’m feeling convicted, here.
So Naaman goes to his king and tells him what the girl
said. The king tells Naaman to go and
gives him a letter to give to the king of Israel. Naaman took ten talents of silver and 6000
shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing with him.
He took the letter to the king of Israel, and when the
king read it, he tore his clothes. The
letter implied that the king could cure Naaman of his leprosy, and he thought
the king of Aram was trying to pick a fight with him! Well, Elisha heard what happened and sent a
message to the king of Israel to send Naaman to him. And Naaman came to Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger out and told Naaman
to wash seven times in the Jordan and he would be cleansed.
Such a simple act.
A little crazy, maybe. Naaman
left angry. He thought Elisha would come
out himself! He thought Elisha would
make a big production of calling on the name of the Lord and waving his hand
over the spot. This didn’t happen as
Naaman imagined. I wonder how many times
I’ve missed out on a blessing because I walked away from something that didn’t
look like I expected it to. In his
anger, Naaman even said the rivers of Damascus were better than those of
Israel!
But his servants were wise and knew how to reach their
master. And they seemed to care enough
about their master to want to see him healed.
Or maybe they just wanted to see if the healing would actually
occur. But they reasoned with Naaman,
telling him that if the prophet asked him to do a really big thing, wouldn’t he
do it? How much more should he do what
he’s instructed when it’s just “wash and be cleansed”?
I so love that Naaman was the sort of man to listen to
his servants! First, his wife’s servant
girl, now his own servants. Naaman went
to the Jordan River. He dipped seven
times. He was restored. Wow!!!
Jesus’ healing of the ten lepers was a bit
different. The healing happened along
the road rather than in an instant. But,
one leper in Jesus’ miracle returned to thank Him. And in this story, Naaman returned to Elisha
to praise God! And Naaman wanted to give
a gift, which Elisha refused. He asked
to take some earth back home with him, and he asked for forgiveness for when he
would be forced to bow in the temple of Rimmon while he was helping his master
worship. What a beautifully transformed
heart!!!
In these next few verses, we will encounter a heart that
should have been transformed, but wasn’t.
Read 2 Kings
5:20-27.
Elisha had refused Naaman’s gift. Gehazi’s greed surfaces, here. He chases Naaman down and tells him that his
master sent him to collect silver and clothes.
How could someone so close to Elisha have such a heart? How could someone who saw so many miracles be
so hardened? I wonder if Gehazi was
unsuccessful trying to awaken the boy in chapter 4 because his heart was
corrupt. Gehazi is Elisha’s Judas. Just like Judas lived with Jesus, ate with
Jesus, ministered with Jesus, and saw the miracles, he was all about the money,
too. So sad. Is there something you love more than Jesus?
Well, because of this, Naaman’s leprosy would cling to
Gehazi and his descendants forever. And
Gehazi left.
This brings us to our next principle:
P1. God is our
healer.
How have you experienced or witnessed God’s healing
power? What miracle are you waiting for
from God right now? How are you praying
for friends or family members who are waiting for miraculous healings?
Now let’s look at our final few verses.
Read 2 Kings 6:1-7.
We’re about to make another trip to the Jordan. The sons of the prophets didn’t have enough
room to meet, so they went to the Jordan to build a meeting place there. One of them had borrowed an axe and was using
It to cut down trees for the building.
The axe head fell into the water.
Elisha asked where it fell, threw a piece of wood into the water and the
iron axe head floated! Isn’t this just
like God?!?! In Luke 15, Jesus tells
three parables about lost things: a sheep, a coin, and a son!
Here are my last couple of principles:
P1. God cares about
lost things.
P2. God owns and has
the power to defy natural law.
When have you seen or experienced God’s restoration of
something (or someone) that was lost?
So, let me ask again: when have you experienced a
miracle? When have you experienced or
witnessed God’s power? Have you been
healed? Have you been mesmerized by the
ocean waves crashing to the shore? Have
you watched a bee fly and wonder how that was possible? Where have you seen God’s fingerprints and
footprints in your life?
Holy Father, thank You
for this time and the Scriptures. I pray
we will obediently spend time with You every day, allowing You to fill us up
with Your Holy Spirit. And if there is
anyone who doesn’t know You, may these verses point them to Your goodness and
generosity and the truth of Your desire for relationship with them, and may
they seek out Jesus for salvation right now.
It’s in His name I ask this. Amen.
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