June 26, 2016 No Compromise With God by Pastor Josh Sheldon

We come to the end now, this morning, of this series we've been in.

Elijah, Elisha, finally the prophet dies.

And the scripture is so plain about it, is it not?

This great prophet, Elisha, who did so many miracles.

This life -giving prophet, Elisha, who stood like his predecessor, Elijah,

before kings.

Who stood like his predecessor, Elijah, before Baal and all the idolatry of

Israel.

Who stood as had Elijah, in fear of his life.

And finally, after so many years of ministry, and for us, just so many

weeks of preaching, I actually kept a count.

This is the 28th, and as I said, the final sermon in this series.

And the scripture kind of says, what?

He died, he just died.

He had a sickness, we have no idea what it was.

We have no idea how long it kept at him.

He simply died.

He had come sick of the sickness with which he would die.

The king of Israel comes and visits with him.

They have this encounter with the arrows and the symbolism of them, and he's buried.

And so ends this great prophet's life and this series that we've had in him.

I do trust, I do pray that this has been a good series for you to hear.

That you have been as enlivened in your spirit by the hearing of what I've preached as I

have been in the study of it.

It has been one of the better studies I've done in a long time.

Just the way, and I won't bother explaining in detail, but you get the idea.

This just, for me personally, been a very convicting and a very spiritually enlivening study, and I do trust

it has been for you.

But this morning, we come to the end of it.

Elisha comes to the end of his life, and we're not gonna go further in 2 Kings.

We're going to go to a different set of topics and Lord willing, by about September, come to the

book of Romans, and that'll be our next series.

There's a final word in 2 Kings chapter 13

that Elisha died.

And this corpse, these friends throw the corpse into the tomb, he

touches Elisha, and comes back to life.

So even though we have in 2 Kings chapter 13 and verse 25 the end

of the Elisha cycle of prophecy, we have the last word written about him,

and we're preaching the last sermon, the last word in preaching about Elisha.

Death is not the final word.

Hear me carefully.

When we're speaking of God, death is not

the answer.

Death does not get the last word.

If the apostle asks, oh death, where is your sting?

The scripture cries back to him, it has been vanquished.

Man has been held captive by the fear of death, but God, by his son, Jesus Christ, has overcome

it.

As the Puritan wrote in the title of his book, John 1, title of his book, the death of

death in the death of Jesus Christ.

Death has been destroyed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

With God, understand, with God, death is not the final answer, and death does not get the

last word.

And we learn this here in 2 Kings chapter 13, as the Elisha

cycle of prophecy, if you will, comes to an end.

Elisha dies, but death is not the end of anything with God.

In him, in Jesus, there's victory over death, and more than that, in him, there is complete victory

over the law of sin and death, though we may not know it now in these bodies today.

The promise of God in scripture, the promise of God in 2 Kings chapter 13, verses 14

to 25, is God has put his stamp of guarantee on that

promise that in Jesus Christ, the law of sin and death has been overcome,

that when we see him in heaven, there will be no more tear, they'll all be wiped away, there'll be no more death,

there'll be no more disease, because God has said so.

And in history, in time and space, in 2 Kings 13, we have the record

that gives us that guarantee.

In Christ, which is sort of the end of the message, and we begin with this, because I want this to be

preeminent, if we don't preach Jesus Christ, we preach nothing in this place.

So let me begin with him, because in the cross,

God willing, we'll come back to the cross before this message is over, but in the cross is where that victory is

found.

Everything that points forward to 2 Kings chapter 13 means nothing by itself,

except that it points to the cross of Jesus Christ, where victory over death was finalized.

Elisha's death and the miracle surrounding his corpse has no meaning except for that, except for

Golgotha, where we can look again in wonder at the life -giving death of our savior,

Jesus Christ.

Elisha's body gave life to one.

This friend of some people we don't even know, we get no names, they just toss him into the tomb, they must have rolled

away the stone, thrown him in the tomb, and gotten away from these raiders.

Elisha's body gave life to one.

Jesus is to a countless throng, winding back to the very beginning, encompassing everyone of the elect from

Adam to the last soul to be saved before the Lord returns.

So even while acknowledging that Jesus is better than, better than, better than Elisha, that the

salvation he won is more expansive, more extensive, more effectual, and eternal than

anything the prophet could have imagined, even with that, this one -time victory over death is so

unexpected.

It comes into history like the Melchizedek of miracles, without warning, without precedent.

It has, as it were, no genealogy.

It is without beginning of days.

It's a miracle without subsequence until the apostles raise the dead themselves.

Though that, of course, was after Calvary.

That was after Jesus' resurrection and the giving of the spirit.

But alone of all the prophets, even the Baptist, who Jesus called the greatest of the prophets, alone of

the prophets, Elijah and Elisha raised the dead.

And after he had finished his course, Elisha was buried, and then from the grave, this final statement by God

as to the ministry he had accomplished for some 60 years.

And here he exceeds his master, Elijah.

A corpse that came into contact with his corpse returns to life.

The word Joseph read to you says he revived, but he was dead.

We could just as easily say he was resurrected.

He touched Elisha's bones, and he came out of that tomb.

He no longer belonged there.

And that's the end of the story, isn't it?

Isn't that the end of 2 Kings, chapter 13, verses 14 to 25?

It ends with that.

He revived.

Let's get on with it.

Let's read about the rest of Israel's history.

No, we stop there.

We stop there, and now we're gonna go through it in the order of the text that was read to you,

beginning at the beginning of this section.

We come to this King Joash.

Joash was Jehu's grandson.

We studied Jehu just a few weeks back.

He followed the ways of Jehu and of his father, Jehoahaz.

He followed Joash, his grandfather, and Jehoahaz, his father,

and he followed them in ways that were not good.

He followed them in the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who you recall is

the one who set up the golden calves in Israel, the one who introduced the idolatry to Israel.

He followed in that way.

And yet here he is with Elisha, knowing he's going to die.

Here he is with Elisha, this prophet of God, the word of God in Israel,

in this one man, this word of the God opposed to everything that King Joash does,

at least on the spiritual plane.

This prophet, who every time Joash would go to the golden calves,

or encourage his people to do so, or even ignore them when they did so, this prophet,

he goes to him in mourning, tearing his clothes as it were because of

the impending loss of the prophet.

He calls him my father twice.

This cry of his heart, this attachment to this man, this love for this elderly

prophet, he calls him my father, my father, and he calls out the chariots of Israel and his horsemen,

meaning he understood that Israel's protection from their enemies was because of the

presence of God through the prophet.

Their chariots, their horses, as we will see, were down to almost nothing.

One might wonder which he is most sorrowful to lose, the prophet himself or the protection his nation enjoyed

by the prophetic word he carried.

But this man, following in the ways of his father, his grandfather, going all the way back to Jeroboam, the first king

of Israel, this man so opposed to the things of God when the prophet of God is

about to die is heartbroken.

We read in the first three verses of this chapter how his father Jehoahaz stirred up God's anger by continuing in the sins of

Jeroboam, and then in verse seven we're told, there was not left to Jehoahaz an army of more than 50

horsemen and 10 chariots and 10 ,000 footmen for the king of Syria.

What could Jehoahaz have meant by the chariots of Israel and its horsemen?

There are none, there are none.

When Poland was invaded by Germany, by the tanks, there's a famous picture of the

Polish cavalry on horses with sabers drawn charging against the panzers, and that's what he has left

to fight Syria.

Be as horses going against modern tanks, he has nothing left.

And he calls out the chariots and his horsemen.

He means the protection that God has given us because we were unable to do anything.

And when Elisha goes, so goes that protection.

They had only a few horsemen, chariots, and footmen.

For the king of Syria, it says, and that's Hazael, the king of Syria, the one who was anointed that king

back in chapter eight, and we covered that then, he had destroyed them like the dust of threshing.

Referring to the threshing floors where wheat was beaten and separated from the shaft.

In short, he left Jehoahash, his son, virtually nothing with which to contest Syria's incursions.

Now do we see why he cries in distress for the chariots and the horsemen of Israel?

Sort of like Elisha, if you're gonna go, you have to give them back to us.

I have no other way to withstand these Syrians.

Do we not see that he had been shown his utter dependence on the God of

Elisha?

There's no explanation for their survival against the mighty Syrian enemy to the east than this, that

God had protected them.

That's the only answer we can have.

God protected them.

Now our scripture tells us that plainly, that God did not look away from them because of his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

God did it for his own namesake.

But from the human plane, from the human plane of an unbeliever,

what was he thinking?

Now the one conduit of the grace of God that had protected them for so long is on his deathbed.

The way he cries out, my father, my father, shows some genuine affection, but the temporal concern

cannot be too far behind.

So now we can stop and ask, why were Israel's armies decimated and her territories reduced under

Jehoahaz and not under Jehoahash even further

going back?

Why is there no mention of any discourse with the prophet by the one, Jehoahash or

Jehoahaz, yet the other seems truly heartbroken over his impending departure?

Why is Jehoahash offered a chance for victory while his father seemed to

know only defeat?

Both followed the same sin, the sin of Jeroboam.

Neither is recorded to have ever repented.

If even for a moment like wicked Ahab did, just for that one moment, no such record.

The son did the works of the father.

Why was he blessed with a close relationship with Elisha while his father seemingly had none at all?

Why did he enjoy relative security and then the promise of victory?

All those questions can only be explained one way.

Only the sovereign grace of God can answer any of that.

There's a principle in scripture that applies here.

Paul says, as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I have hated.

What shall we say then?

Is there injustice on God's part?

By no means.

May it never be.

He goes on to argue for the only thing that explains the favor showered on

Jacob rather than Esau and it explains the favor of Jehoahash here in his relationship with

Elisha versus his father and his grandfather.

It is God's sovereign choice and we can't explain it any other way.

Why has God chosen Israel out of all the nations?

It's because you are more numerous?

It's because you're more handsome, you're prettier, you're more powerful, more eloquent?

No.

How does Moses answer that question?

God did not choose you for any of these reasons but because he chose to set his love upon you

end of story, period.

Why did God choose you to be in Jesus Christ?

Because he chose to set the love of his son upon you and you have no other explanation than God's grace.

And so here, Jehoash has this relationship with the word of God in Elisha

because God chose.

We can't explain it any other way.

It says, the Lord Jesus told us even in the Olivet Discourse, then two

men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left.

Two women will be grinding at the mill and one taken and the other left.

Why the one and not the other?

Why Jacob, not Esau?

Why Jehoash, not his father, his grandfather?

Why you, not your husband?

Why you and not your wife, your child, your father, your mother, your coworker, your

parents?

We can only bow down before a sovereign God who of his own free will and his

own good pleasure makes these choices because we choose nothing

but God everything.

Jehoash, apostate like his father, knows that without Elisha, the country has no chance.

Does he know that it is not the man but the God who worked through him?

Does the king know that it's not Elisha himself but God working through him?

He has the opportunity to learn just that and what comes next.

Elisha tells him two things.

First, fire an arrow east.

East, of course, is Syria, also called in the scripture Aram, A -R -A -M.

And an arrow, of course, is an offensive weapon and firing it in the direction of the enemy is this highly provocative

and this very symbolic action to take.

And as we'll see, it's a prophetic act.

So that's the first thing he tells him.

The second, he says, strike the ground with the rest of the arrows.

Sort of an odd command, but Jehoash seems to understand or somewhat understand what it's about.

We'll go to the arrow first.

We already pointed out that it was sent in the direction of their enemy, Syria.

Against their overwhelming power, a single arrow is laughably useless.

It's silly.

But it's no more silly or useless under God's command.

Fired in God's power, in trust and faith in him, it's no more silly, it's no more useless than is

a smooth stone against a giant.

If it's flung with faith in the power of the God who says shoot.

And not just shoot as if it were those who box like one beating the air, but shoot and

hear the word of the Lord.

It's like King Arthur's Excalibur.

It's an arrow that had a name.

Arthur's sword had a name, Excalibur.

This arrow has a name, it's called the Lord's arrow of victory.

The Lord's arrow of victory.

The arrow of victory over Syria.

The king surely knew how to string a bow and how to loose an arrow.

He didn't need any help for that, much less from arms so aged as Elisha's.

But Elisha represented the word of God and the power of God in Israel.

When he placed his hand on the king's, do you remember that?

Did you notice that when Joseph read it?

That he pulled back the bow and then the prophet put his hand on the king's hand.

What does that mean?

What does that demonstrate to us?

It conveyed to him that the arrow was more than a shaft with a sharp tip on it.

It was a living parable, an object lesson in what God would do.

The arrow of victory over Syria.

God's power to bring victory over Syria.

Because with those few chariots and horsemen and cavalry and infantry,

Israel on its own is not gonna get a victory over anybody, much less a power like Syria at that time.

So two instructions, shoot and strike.

Shoot the arrow and then strike the ground.

And the first one he does, the prophet's hand representing God's pledge of the victory represented

and then strike.

Strike the ground with what remains, the remaining arrows.

It had to have been clear to Joash that this lesson is spiritual.

It had to be clear to him.

The arrow had a name and was sent with the promise of the Lord, victory.

The Lord's arrow of victory over whom?

It's over Syria, the enemy to the east, the one who most threatens you.

And it says, Jesus teaches us, God knows what we have need of before we ask, yet ask we

must.

Manna was sent when no one asked for it, but normally God works our good by driving us to what?

To dependent prayer and then providing what he always intended as he

answers those dependent prayers.

They were altogether known by him before a word of them was on our lips.

More than new, he decreed both our prayer and his loving answer to the prayer.

He tells Joash, shoot.

This is the arrow of victory, now shoot it.

What's one arrow gonna do?

It's just gonna land in the ground.

But shoot it because God says this is an arrow of victory.

He will work the victory.

Shoot the arrow.

The king of Syria doesn't even know.

If he saw it, he wouldn't care.

A single arrow, a single smooth stone flung in

faith and it hits the giant in the forehead and down he goes.

Joash shot well, but then he faltered to Elisha's great displeasure.

He struck as he was told to strike, but only to the basest

level of obedience that he could manage.

I wish I was there.

I wish I could have seen, was he being sardonic?

Was he questioning, was he, what's this about, Elisha?

Okay, here, boom, boom, boom, I'll strike.

Or did he strike hard three times in faith and then just stop?

I'd love to have been there.

He shot well, but then he faltered.

He struck, but only with the minimum.

He only did the least he thought he could get away with with the prophet right there.

The whole encounter that it was prophetic was clear by the naming of the arrow and the person there with the king.

Elisha, we've been studying him for a while.

He's never wasted a word except to tell men something of God.

Now, you and I can properly engage in casual conversation.

In fact, it's a valid and it's a valuable part of a vibrant relationship.

Every now and then, our conversation is just, hey, what's up, how you doing today?

Well, you know, I can't get the lawnmower to work, that sort of thing.

We can be casual sometimes.

Elisha never took that kind of liberty.

The king ought to have known that every word, every action, every command carried a significance

beyond what the five senses could convey.

He knew it was a spiritual encounter.

The arrows had already been claimed by God, so striking them on the ground, I mean, was the prophet's hand still on the

king's?

Well, it was a commitment to use them.

It was a sign of submission to God's will and trust in him.

And here is where Jehoash failed.

Here's where he failed, in trusting the Lord as he spoke through

Elisha, where we fail so often.

Trusting the Lord as he speaks through us through the scripture and what he's given us.

His victories were limited to his faith.

As when Jesus could not do many works in that place because the people there lacked faith.

He could not do many works there, it says in the scripture, in Mark, because of their lack of

believing.

Jehoash, three times only.

And before we become too aghast, we do need to check our own spirits here.

Because it's easy to say, was he striking the ground the way a little chicken scratches at the ground?

Why couldn't he believe, after he'd been with Elisha, this great prophet all this time, and oh, we look at him in the scripture, we

hear this story, and we say, oh, Jehoash, and we cluck our tongues at him, and say,

if only I had been there, if only he'd put those in my hand.

Do we so boldly, as Jehoash though, ever really strike the ground with the arrows God

gives us?

We're told to take up the armor of God.

Read in Ephesians six.

By taking up the armor of God, a command to be repeated daily and constantly throughout our earthly pilgrimage.

But we need to ask ourselves, before we get too judgmental about this Israelite king, we need to ask ourselves, is

that shield that God gives us, is it prominently displayed?

Is it held up in real faith in the power of God, that that shield will stop the

darts of the evil one from getting to us?

Is it boldly employed as the arrows should have been in Jehoash?

Is our sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, is it wielded with the expertise that practice would bring?

Or do we just sort of scratch our Bibles open a few times and then call it a night?

Oh, let's not lord it over Jehoash until we've checked ourselves in all of this.

You who by faith in Christ have the Spirit of God, let us not judge this king who lived without God's Spirit

until we can at least say, I struck three times.

When God gives us his whole scripture from Genesis to Revelation, and as it were, puts his hand over ours because it's

Jesus who's behind the scripture and in and through and the point of it all.

It says, now with the power of God and certainty in his word, strike the ground.

Do we strike any harder than Jehoash did?

Any more often?

With any more confidence than he did?

We who have the Spirit of God, do we?

Do we, or do we just kind of scratch at it three times, two times, four times, couple

times?

Okay, done my scratching, done my striking, off to bed.

We're so shy of claiming God's promise.

The idea of having personal victory in Jesus is so much abused out there in the world at large, we refuse to claim

his promises at all.

We let the world's abuse of a good thing drive us away from it altogether, and I say to you,

God has put the weapons of our warfare in our hands.

Ephesians six, for example, is the armor of God.

Do we put it on?

Paul tells us in Corinthians, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy

strongholds.

Do you believe that?

God puts this arrow, this word of God, in our hands, and does he not say to us,

strike the ground?

This is the arrow of victory.

This is the arrow of victory over your sin.

What besets you in your sin?

What do you constantly fall back to?

Have you grabbed hold, knowing that God's hand through his Son is upon your hand, and struck the

ground with it?

Do we ever?

How often is the scripture, even in our hands, much less struck upon the ground with confidence

that God will do as he says, and claim the victory that God's word

tells us we should and we can claim?

We're so afraid of that in our circles, aren't we?

That I claim this promise of God, and he gave me victory over this sin.

I'm gonna sing victory in Jesus tonight as I go to bed, and we say, this sounds a little off in that

other land that we don't go to in our circles.

Nonsense.

Nonsense.

God's word is full of promises.

I love the preaching of our brother Steve, where he says, you know, this is a book of, how does he say it?

It's judicial language.

I didn't use the word right.

But it's language we can understand that gives us clear promises.

God says he will do this, believe it.

Now go forth in confidence in his word.

Strike the ground with this error.

Don't make up your own promises.

Don't ever go outside of what the scripture says, but the scripture says it, believe it.

And let us not judge Jehoash, because he only struck three times, until we're at least willing to do that three times.

Give it three times before we look back upon him and say he didn't do enough.

The prophet certainly said that.

He was angry.

We're not Elisha.

Jehoash, as we so often do, he limited his blessing by his anemic strikes.

They show that he really didn't believe God.

He struck three times, so he gained what?

He gained three victories and three victories only.

There could have been more.

To Elisha's dismay, there should have been more.

But let us note, at the end of what was read to you, verses 22 to 25, he did

have his three victories over his Syrian foe.

God's word was kept.

How did he gain those victories?

He had no chariots, he had no cavalry, he had no infantry.

Just a paltry number, and yet he had the victories.

God's word came true.

God kept his word, as he always does.

Praise God, his promises, though, are not kept because of our performance.

How hard did Jehoash strike?

Didn't matter.

He struck.

What was the quality of it?

Did he hold them hard?

Did he say something?

He says, the sword, the arrow of the Lord, or anything like that.

It doesn't matter.

He obeyed.

God kept his word.

Did he obey enough?

Elisha's anger would say, no.

Elisha wanted more for the king.

And yet, God kept his word.

Praise God, his promises are not dependent on the quality of our performance.

Imagine if that were the case when it came to salvation.

Salvation in Jesus, imagine if that were the case.

That old evangelical question applies.

If you were to die today and face God, if he asked you why you should be allowed into his kingdom, what would you say?

And so often, what do we hear to a question like that?

It's a good question.

And what do we hear?

Well, I haven't committed this sin or that sin.

I follow most of the 10 commandments.

And well, I kind of did this one, but that's not as bad as this other one.

And I kept away from this other one, like murder, which is really big.

We've all heard all this.

But God promises that it's not our merit that he looks for.

By grace, you've been saved through faith, not of works, so that no one may boast.

It doesn't matter whether we struck the ground three times or six times or seven times or dozens of

times.

Well, it matters that we take something up like the shield of faith, but even that is given to us by the grace of God.

What doesn't matter is the quality of our effort.

Obey, we must.

Do our best, yes, we must.

Strike when the word commands us to strike.

But it's not the striking per se that gains us anything.

It's the God who says to strike.

And we strike to the best of our ability, as strong as our arm can be, as great as our grip

can be, with all the effort we can, yes.

But praise God is because he promises that he keeps his word, and he

doesn't look up from heaven or look down from heaven and say, well, I'm not quite sure that that

one struck as well as he could, but I'm not quite sure that he could, so no promises to him.

No fulfillment for this one.

I like the way this one's hitting the ground over here better.

So he's gonna get all the blessings, or she will.

Praise God.

That is not the way our God works.

Imagine if it were that way for salvation, that our salvation, our eternal souls, depended on

anything other than the quality of Jesus Christ and his work.

Because if it depended on us, anyone in history, from Adam to the last soul,

whoever takes a breath, if it depended upon us, then all would be lost.

It depends only upon the quality of Jesus Christ.

But strike, Christian.

Do strike the ground.

The Lord spoke of three men.

Jesus Christ spoke of three men.

You remember the parable of the talents?

One had five, one had two, one had one.

And he entrusted them with the three talents.

When the master left, the man with five talents, what did he do?

He struck the ground and he earned five more talents.

The man with two talents, what did he do?

He struck the ground, he earned two more talents.

And both of them were told the same thing.

The master comes back, he has 10 talents here, he has four talents here.

They're told the same thing.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

You have been faithful over a little.

I'll set you over much.

They struck equal to their ability and that's important.

The Lord meted out to them what he knew they could handle in the first place and by his grace they did.

As no different for us, no different for us than it was in the parable.

Paul says, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.

God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability but with the temptation he also will

provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.

As it were, you can strike the ground and gain the victory

and not give in to that temptation.

Nor will he put in your hand more arrows or more talents than you can grasp

or employ to his glory.

And what we must grasp onto, what we need to have in hand and strike with is nothing other than what

I've been saying, the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is he in whom God the Father is well pleased.

Jehoah has struck three times with a heart of flesh and he gained three victories.

If you'll strike but once with Jesus, you'll have so much more.

Sin and death were conquered by him.

Do you wish that victory to be yours?

Strike your heart with him.

Put your hope, your trust, your faith in him.

Go to God, confess your sin, know your horrible state before him and confess that it is only resolved

if Jesus Christ stands before you, between you and him, between you and God the Father

and his righteous indignation at your sin.

You're shielded from it by Jesus Christ and his cross.

Strike with faith in Christ and say to God, I am weak, I am pitifully weak.

I come to you asking forgiveness, begging forgiveness because of the merits of your only

begotten son and that alone.

There's one here who says he's too tired to strive spiritually.

There's another here who says he's too feeble.

There's some that say they don't even know how.

There's some that say they have only one arrow with which to strike and all that may be true but none of that is

important.

God works through your weakness.

Strike with confidence, strike with God's help.

Know what it says in verses 22 to 23.

I already alluded to this.

I'll read it again.

Now, Hazael, king of Syria, oppressed Israel all the days that Jehoahaz.

But the Lord was gracious to them and had compassion on them and he turned toward them because of his covenant with Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob and would not destroy them nor has he cast them from his presence until

now.

Now, of course, when the author says until now, he's speaking of the end of Israel.

He doesn't mean until now today in 2016.

He means until now back in the ninth century BC.

He gave them their three victories.

He didn't take them away because the striking stopped.

Why?

For his namesake.

Why?

Because of his covenant with the patriarchs.

And who made the covenant with the patriarchs?

God did.

He made it of his own free and sovereign will and he kept his promise because he is true to his own word and

it's impossible for God to lie.

And now we close with the two verses just before the final paragraph in the text.

Most likely they're out of chronological order.

So Elisha died and they buried him.

Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year and as a man was being buried, behold, a

marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of Elisha and as soon as the man touched the

bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet.

Death is not the end.

Death is not the final answer.

It does not get the last word.

Elisha, like Elijah before him, had been a prophet of life.

Yes, Elijah anointed Elisha as the one who would commence God's judgment against the house of Ahab and the

bail that he brought to the land.

And yes, many would die when Elisha carried out God's decree.

But the idolatry he acted against was already what?

A living death.

As Ephesians 2 .1 says, and you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

Physical death is but the consequence of that slow suicide of idolatry.

Elisha was a life bringer.

He was anointed to bring about this judgment, to anoint the kings who would bring the judgment of God against the house

of Ahab and against Israel, really, for their idolatry.

As we learned some weeks ago, it was a violent time.

And the blood and gore is astounding.

The death is incredible.

Even so, Elisha, like the God who spoke and worked through him,

he was a life bringer.

He cured the spoiled waters of Jericho.

He saved Israel's army by bringing them water.

He gave life to the Shunammite's womb, and then he restored life back into her son.

The deadly stew by Elisha was made wholesome.

The living death of leprosy was taken away.

The siege of Samaria was broken, and with it, the famine.

And each one of these was a separate message.

Do you remember those?

Elisha, by the God he represented, by the God for whom he spoke, was a bringer of

life, not death.

Like all the prophets, even while preaching the dread judgments of God, in the name of God, he was a life -giving

prophet.

For God does not threaten death without warning of it.

Death is not warned except that life is offered.

Do you know Jesus Christ?

Have you repented of your sins and fled to the cross of Jesus Christ?

If you have not, you're a walking, living, dead person.

As I read from Ephesians, you who were dead in trespass and sins.

He says were, past tense.

Speaking to the church, speaking to the redeemed of God, those who have faith in Jesus Christ.

We can easily change it because if you do not know Jesus Christ, if your faith is not in him, we can say you

who are dead.

And yet God never proclaims death, yet he offers life.

If you will but turn from your sins, if you turn from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house

of Israel?

Why would you die, anyone, when life is offered to you?

The final miracle proves it.

The final miracle proves it.

Some men are burying their friend and suddenly they need to hide from the Moabites.

They only have time to break open Elisha's tomb and unceremoniously dump in the body.

And in the most straightforward and plain language, the scripture tells us that when he contacted his decaying bones, he

revived, he stood on his feet.

I do trust that he got those feet moving and he wasn't killed by the raiders, that he got out of there.

Elisha would no more than frown upon us if we attributed this to him.

I said no more, he would do more, excuse me, he would do more than frown upon us if we attributed

any of that to him.

Like Paul, like Barnabas, he'd be horrified to see God's glory going to himself.

The reason for this unique miracle is not too hard to figure out.

I answer it with a question.

Why did God raise Jesus from the dead?

That question couldn't be answered in the proverbial month of Sunday, so I'll limit myself to this.

At the end of his gospel message at the Areopagus, Paul summed it up this way.

God has given assurance to all of this, meaning the gospel that I've preached to you, by

raising him, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead.

In Jesus is life and that life is the light of men, says John at the beginning of his gospel.

Our God is a God of life.

He is a God who is so much more than life than death that death is held back until he can

contain his wrath no further.

He is a God who pleads with you through another prophet, saying, as I live, declares the Lord, I have no

pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.

God is a God of life.

He warns you today of death if you don't know Jesus Christ.

And yet in the warning of death, by the same scripture, the same God, in his son,

Jesus Christ, sets forth words of life.

Turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die?

He is a God who tells dead bones to live.

He is a God who gives life to you who are dead in your sins.

And all this he affirmed when this unnamed corpse touches

Elisha's bones.

And he stands on his feet, revived.

By this miracle, God held up, and he now holds out a mighty image of the future.

The cross of Jesus Christ and his resurrection.

The marvelous, unbounded, regenerated, soul -enlivening, and life -giving power shed abroad into

the whole world.

The death of Elisha's ultimate master, Jesus Christ, would do this.

You see, by his death came more than three victories in the world, but one great,

infinite, eternal, and death -destroying miracle, the miracle of salvation.

And by his death, what?

We are reconciled to God.

By it, we have been purchased by his blood, consecrated to himself as his holy bride.

He's a stepchild of the curse, way back in Genesis 3.

The stepchild of that curse is death, for the wages of sin is death.

But then the stepchild of the resurrection is the opposite, but the gift of God is eternal life in

Christ Jesus our Lord.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

The man touched a corpse, and he lived, as God confirmed all his word by Elisha.

That man, like Lazarus, centuries later, had to die again, for it is given to men to die once, and then

the judgment.

But if you will but touch Jesus, if by faith you will believe that he died for your sins,

and that God raised him on the third day, then you too will live, and live abundantly, and live

fully now, and with the never -ending joy before the face of God that you'll have for all eternity.

So we finish this series on Elisha,

and we learn this.

And I think this lesson is worth the whole series of sermons, going all the way back to the beginning with

Elisha.

We learn this, death does not have the final word.

In Christ, God has overruled it.

Death did not get the victory then, and it does not now.

Three victories to the king were proof that God's word is a living word, and a word of

life.

If you will but touch Jesus, Jesus who is not dead, Jesus who rose from the dead, and lives today, and

forevermore, if you will touch him, touch him with an arrow of faith, you

too will live.

Amen?