Good News to the Poor — Jackie Pullinger

Elisha Announces Deliverance During Samaria’s Famine

From 2 Kings 6, and you'll find that on page 338 of your Pew Bible. Sometime later, King Ben-Hadad of Aram mustered his entire army. He marched against Samaria and laid siege to it. As the siege continued, famine in Samaria became so great that a donkey's head was sold for 80 shekels of silver and one fourth of a cab of dove's dung for five shekels of silver.

Now, as the king of Israel was walking on the city wall, a woman cried out to him, help, my lord king. He said, no, let the lord help you. How can I help you? From the threshing floor or from the wine press?

But then the king asked her, what is your complaint? She answered, this woman said to me, give up your son. We will eat him today and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day, I said to her, give up your son and we will eat him.

But she's hidden her son. When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. Now, since he was walking on the city wall, the people could see that he had sackcloth on his body underneath.

And he said, so may God do to me and more if the head of Elisha, son of Shaphat, stays on his shoulders today. So he dispatched a man from his presence. Now, Elisha was sitting in his house and the elders were sitting with him.

Before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, are you aware that this murderer has sent someone to take off my head? When the messenger comes, see that you shut the door and hold it closed against him.

Is not the sound of his master's feet behind him? While he was still speaking with them, the king came down to him and said, this trouble is from the Lord. Why should I hope in the Lord any longer? But Elisha said, hear the word of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord, tomorrow about this time, a measure of choice meal shall be sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria. Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, even if the Lord were to make windows in the sky, could such a thing happen?

But he said, you shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat from it. Now, there were four leprous men outside the city gate who said to one another, why should we sit here until we die? If we say, let us enter the city, the famine is in the city and we shall die there.

But if we sit here, we shall also die. Therefore, let us desert the Aramean camp. If they spare our lives, we shall live. And if they kill us, we shall but die. So they rose at twilight to go to the Aramean camp.

But when they came to the edge of the Aramean camp, there was no one there at all. For the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, the king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to fight against us.

So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses and their donkeys, leaving the camp just as it was and fled for their lives. When these leprous men had come to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent, ate and drank, carried off silver, gold and clothing and went and hid them.

Then they came back, entered another tent, carried off things from it and went and hid them. Then they said to one another, what we are doing is wrong. This is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, we'll be found guilty.

Therefore, let us go and tell the king's household. So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, we went to the Aramean camp, but there was no one to be seen or heard there. Nothing but the horses tied, the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.

Then the gatekeepers called out and proclaimed it to the king's household. The king got up in the night and said to his servants, I will tell you what the Arameans have prepared against us. They know that we are starving, so they've left the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking when they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.

One of the servants said, let some men take five of the remaining horses, since those left here will suffer the fate of the whole multitude of Israel that have perished already. Let us send and find out.

So they took two mounted men and the king sent them after the Aramean army saying, go and find out. So they went after them as far as the Jordan. The whole way was littered with garments and equipment that the Arameans had thrown away in their haste.

So the messengers returned and told the king. This is the word of the Lord.

The Spirit of the Lord and Good News to the Poor

I have some friends with me, and they're going to, they live with us and work with us. And so some of them are going to share what they feel God's saying to us. I came that you might have life. And that you might be satisfied and rich.

If you use your own ways, it would come to decay. But if you seek me, you will have joy and life. So don't be worried about the things you can see. But be concerned about the things you cannot. Because those things that you can see are but temporary.

But hope in me is forever. And so commit the things that you have to me because I'm walking before you. And my glory will follow you. And I will be with you. 18. This is where Jesus began to speak. And if you've got these, yeah.

He went into the synagogue. He'd just been baptized in water. And the Holy Spirit had come upon him. And he announced what he was on earth to do. And he starts by saying, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

And I have a question today. That is, what is good news? For we're living in a time where surely the poor need to hear it. Every time there's an earthquake or a flood disaster, and there've been many in the last few months and many in the last few years, in God's mercy, people are provoked.

As they are this day in Hong Kong to collect money or to wonder if they could go with goods or go themselves. Simultaneously, every year, 10 million children die before the age of five. 25 ,000 children die daily just because of poverty.

Nearly 2 million children die because of diarrhea. And this is going on all the time. 80 of the world lives under poverty and a third in this wonderful place, Hong Kong. Though it's a little bit harder to see them these days.

But they're here. And we wonder, what is good news? Because surely good news is something they would like to hear. It cannot be a gospel pill to be swallowed or God advice. Good news is something that somebody hears and says, oh good, I wanted to hear that.

The Rich Need to Share the Good News

And so here are we, and I can hear as we worship this morning that most of you love Jesus. Therefore, we've got everything, have we not? Everything here. And even to be here, those of us who are sitting here, means we didn't have to go to work today.

Or we had the money to get the bus or a taxi or drive. Or we lived in a slightly better part of town so we could afford the rent and walk here. Therefore, here we are a people with very much. We have hope of eternal life.

We have the love of Jesus. We're very rich. And the Lord says that he came to preach good news to the poor. And I want to talk about the poor and their needs in conjunction with this story we just read, which was a very long one.

So I hope you sort of followed it. It's about famine in besieged Samaria. Now in Samaria, there was the king of Israel. We're talking about the time of Elisha. The king of Israel in Samaria was surrounded.

The Arameans, the enemy, were outside. And Samaria was terrified and cut off and starving so much so that two women came to the king and said, help, and he's so rude, this king. He's already seen God work through Elisha.

And he says, what can I do for you? So people start to blame the Lord in times of trouble, as did the king. Then they say, well, we were so poor, we decided to eat our sons. We ate my friend, my son yesterday, and today my friend hid hers.

And the king then swears at the prophet. It's his fault, of course. Now the point about this story is that the king, who should have known the Lord, and there was a dear prophet who clearly made him known, the king should have had all the resources that the people needed to be fed.

And yet they were in siege and poor mentality. Years ago, I was in the walled city. I got here in 66. And it was a series of adventures. But one of the, no, they're all great. I can't say which was the greatest.

Ministry Among the Neglected in the Walled City

But after longing and longing and longing to see people in that place fed for this day and fed for eternity, I had prayed for the power of the Spirit to preach good news to the poor. By the way, that's what it's for.

Strange that the church has just got round to it when it was where Jesus started. Holy Spirit to preach good news to the poor. I had prayed this prayer because the people I was with, they happened to be gangsters or poor widows or beaten mothers in a city which was physically dark and terribly poor.

About in those days, 80 to 100 ,000 people in five or six acres with no toilets or light and open sewers and more rats than people. And girls, which I could see with my own eyes, sold. One of them was 13 or 14 and used as a prostitute every 30 minutes because I watched.

And nothing to be able to do about it because the people running the racket were the people who should have stopped it. That was why I prayed for the power of the Spirit. They had been moved, those people, that I'd spent time with them.

Started a youth club. It started out with quite nice people, ended up with gangsters. And they were moved about Jesus. They said about me. Guan Yu is so quite teasing. Then I told you, so she might be gay.

About Jesus, she's cracked. But apart from that, she's all right. So I was very pleased about that. But I didn't just want them to be moved. I wanted them to be changed. So I prayed for the power of the Spirit.

And that's another long story which is written down to save me telling you today. And when I received the power of the Spirit, didn't feel very powerful, but I did on that occasion speak in a new language.

And after I learned that it was to pray in this language rather than to feel in, I did start to see miracles. And when the power of the Spirit came on the people that I prayed with, like the people I brought this morning, and they received a new language, they could get off drugs miraculously.

Healing, Deliverance, and the Love of Jesus

After having been on drugs 15, 20 years, no pain, no medicine, no withdrawal pains. So that was brilliant. But one day, two mothers came to me, and I'll never forget, because they knelt down in front of me, and both of them said to me, Pun Siu Je, that was my Chinese name, my son, take my son.

By this time, the name of Jesus had got a bit famous, because as the Holy Spirit came on our guys, you know, God's so kind to be no respecter of persons, to generously visit the lowest, and those who are called the highest too, if they will.

As this had happened, the name of Jesus got famous. People were coming to the walled city for the opposite reasons than they came before. They used to come because it was where you could commit a crime, or sell a woman, or hide from the police, because you couldn't arrest people inside.

But once Jesus started to get famous, they came because that was where you found light. Wonderful. Opposite way around, and these two ladies thought, they just thought, perhaps Pun Siu Je only has room for one son in her house, because I'd started taking people in my house.

How could you choose between two sons? Just recently, one or two people here have visited us, and we have a very nice looking place now, on a very nice mountain. It's beautiful. We are housing between about 300 people, over 200 in that place, but, you know, we're a little bit afraid when people see our lovely place, in case they think you need a lovely place to do this.

No, you don't. We've, I've rented, borrowed rooms, had people in my own home for 20 years, coming off drugs. I've even rented brothels for the night. They do look at you a bit strangely when you're coming in and out.

But, you know, I just needed a room. The reason I needed a room was that I didn't know people like you, and we had women kneeling before us, saying, take my son. How could you not? How could you not? So we just took one more, and then one more, and then rented another place, and then one more.

And the Lord was as kind to them as he had been when he died on the cross for me. What a wonderful Savior. Now, in this story, after the king is so mean and decides that he'll have the prophet killed, we appear in this story four lepers, if we're sort of following the story.

The Poor Receive and Proclaim the Good News

Four lepers, and the lepers say, well, we're starving. You know, lepers are always hungry, outside the city. Shall we go in? Well, there's nothing in there. Well, then, why not go to the camp of the enemy?

Mosippun, no loss. We might die anyway, so let's go to the enemy camp. Years ago, a very tall, and in those days, not very good-looking man thought, is there hope anywhere? His mother'd worked as a cleaner in a church, which didn't seem to be very full of good news, I'm sorry to say, and her son was a heroin addict, and he heard that in the walled city, there was hope, and people talked about Jesus, so he thought, Mosippun, no loss.

I may as well go there and see if Jesus is true. He came, and he said, it was so wonderful. The first time I came, people introduced me to Jesus, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoken tongues.

All our guys, first time they meet Jesus. It's not that they're special, it's just that Jesus is special, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, by the way, are for the needy, not the sanctified, and that man who said, I may as well go where I've heard this life, later I married.

He was a thirsty man, and he'd heard where to go. The four lepers went into the enemy camp, ate and drank, and saw that the enemy had fled. Why? The enemy had fled because they'd heard a noise, and the Arameans thought, oh, maybe the people of Israel in Samaria, maybe they've got some enemy forces, and so they ran away, even leaving their donkeys and horses tied up.

So the lepers are having this great feast, gold and silver, and they decide to hide some, and then their conscience is smitten. Please don't take a photo. Conscience is smitten, and they say, what we're doing is not right.

This is what happened to us in Wall City. The power of the Spirit and the love of Jesus, he forgives our sins, he heals our body, he sets us free from addictions. Oh, we are feeding, we are feeding. We were the lepers, and now we're the full ones, and then we get a conscience and say, what we're doing is not right.

We better not keep this to ourselves. You see, in this story, the people of God should have been the ones in the city, but they were in siege mentality. It was the lepers who had the good news. And the lepers went to the city, of course they're not allowed in, and they shout to the gatekeepers, good news, the enemies fled!

The gatekeepers shout the news to the king. This is what happened in our Wall City. Just amazing story. All over the world, people came to the Wall City because they were going to pull it down. You know, China didn't want to receive an eyesore, and Britain didn't want to give one.

So, they decided to dispose of the Wall City and resettle the people. I happened to be living there as they were beginning to clear it and pull it down. But what happened was that reporters came from the whole world.

We had National Geographic, Australia, Canada. Thank God, none of them Christians. All of them, secular press. They tell the story better. No, I mean that because they are reporting not with John 3 .16 in mind.

And they all reported that we were in all those videos, and they came into our little room. All we got was nothing like this, just a bare room with white walls, with people there worshiping their hearts out, meeting Jesus every week, and miracles of healing happened.

And we got to be on all those videos. Today, I get letters from Australia or Canada saying, I watched your video. Well, I didn't make one. And I put my hand on the TV and I got healed. Oh, I'd say, oh, thank God we got that one for free.

You know, it's absolutely super. You know, we've spent years with the lowest in Hong Kong. We're not in Hong Kong's high church circles or anything like that. We're just getting on with the unlovely, whether they change or not.

Because they're worth it. Because Jesus died for them. But when you do that, somehow the news of Jesus goes to the ends of the earth. So the gatekeeper shouted the news, and the king said, can't be sure this is true.

It's probably a trick. Anyway, mosey boon, it's just the same as the lepers. We're not gonna lose anything, so we'll send five horses, which they hadn't yet eaten, and we will go and see if it's true.

And if they die, well, we're gonna die anyway. This is the church today. It should be that the people of God, that's you, have the good news. But strangely, it's the poor who are preaching it. It's the poor who are shouting it.

It's the reporters who are announcing it. And then the people of God say, well, maybe we could have some too. And they go and find it's true. And they went and they ate, and they drank. And so the stock market just reversed overnight.

Leaving Siege Mentality to Share God’s Abundance

Yes, it can. If we will come out of siege mentality, we do not need to guard what we have, or wonder which son could be saved, for the Lord's heart is for them all. And this is my prayer for you today, that you will find the heart of Jesus.

For the people in this city, first of all, yes, you will respond to China's earthquakes, the floods, the hurricanes. Yes, you will. And I happen to know that the people in this city, almost more than any other, are generous.

This is a generous city in giving. It's quite high. So I'm not really talking about money. I'm talking about your lives. Because you see, you are the ones who've got everything. Everything, everything.

If you know Jesus, you've got hope for eternity. You've got his promise that he'll be with you. And if you're going through slightly difficult things today, it's all right, because he says he'll go through them with you.

But the rest of Hong Kong, the rest of Asia, did you know that most of the people in the world who've never heard that there's a kind God, never heard, are physically poor and hungry? It just happens to be that way around.

They're physically poor and hungry this day, and they have no hope for eternity. Just think next time you go to Yam Cha, for I know somebody who works in a Chinese restaurant. The other day, he left home to go to work at seven.

He worked through, he got two hours off in the afternoon, but there was nowhere to go, so he had to sleep on the staircase. Then he worked through till one o 'clock, gets home at two, gets up at six to go to work again.

This is seven days a week. And if any customer breaks something in the restaurant, he pays for it. No guaranteed holiday, and he dare not not obey his boss in case he loses his job. Of course, that means he can never come to anything like this.

So we send people to his staircase to read Bible and pray with him. That's where our church is, down the back staircase, or on the roof, or in the walled city. And there are people around you who need reaching.

They may never get here. And I'm going to pray that the Lord will send his spirit and that you will receive his spirit to preach good news to the poor. I've brought with me two young guys. They're called go-getters.

Giving Neglected Young People a Family

We've got 70 boys and girls somewhere else living with us. They're out of school. The schools don't want them. They're even out of school by 12. And even though in Hong Kong they should be in school, no one wants them.

So they come and live with us. And they meet Jesus very quickly. And they find the love of God. They find a family. That's what they want. They don't want a lecture. They don't want a counseling course.

They just want a family. And you know, our go-getters, they're the ones that are going to the rest of the world. We've got high flyers, too. Our high flyers are 18s to mid -20s. And they've all been on the drugs you're reading about in the papers.

Ketamine and heroin and these other drugs. We've actually had people healed recently of the bladder disease, you know, where they have to go to the toilet every five minutes. They've got healed. We had somebody who came in urinating blood a month ago.

He's clean now. It's his heart changed, his body changed. And what they want to do now, what else? They're all praying. I want to go to Asia. I want to go to Philippines. I want to go to China. I want to go to Indonesia.

I want to go to Vietnam. I want to go to India. And we've got people in all those countries. I want to share good news with the poor because I've been poor. They learn how to heal the sick. We had a couple of teenagers, not about this age, go to Mongolia a few years ago.

And in Mongolia, they didn't speak Mongolian, of course, but they were asked to pray with a granny. Now, they were able to pray with the granny because our friends took goods. We believe in feeding people now and for eternity.

You can never choose one or the other. Not fair to choose one or the other, though you may swing from side to side. Anyway, because of that, they said, would you pray for this granny? She's blind and she's got a bad knee.

Well, our teenagers thought, maybe we're not yet up to blind eyes, so we'll just lay our hands on the leg. They laid their hands on her leg and said, in the name of Jesus, be healed. And then she screamed.

And they asked the interpreter what she's saying. And she was saying, I can see, I can see. Our teenagers have been loved by Jesus. They've been physically and emotionally healed by Jesus. Some of them have got reconciled to the families who couldn't manage them.

And then they go and bring good news to the poor. That's what we're training our people for. They learn how to mend roofs, de-lice people, feed their babies and pray for miracles, and share their food.

A Call to Bring Good News in Word and Deed

Would you like to be part of bringing good news to the poor? Please stand and I'll pray for you. And then some of you will stay behind, perhaps specifically to pray about being part of God's heart for the physically poor.

Yes, we know the rich poor need Jesus. They do, but they can read a book and they may get a day off. Our calling must be as well, not instead, but as well to those who are physically poor in time, in living quarters, in food, and in hope.

So we ask you, Lord, and we say yes. We were poor and you found us. And we thank you for laying down your life, that on the cross you broke the curse of poverty. And we ask that you break this curse of poverty in our own lives, that we be free to go to the poor and not shut up in our siege mentality, afraid that we've got nothing to give.

For you promised that we'd always have enough to be generous on every occasion to be rich. So Lord, we say sorry we haven't shared what we've got. We thought we had to guard it. And we say we are willing to share, but pour out your spirit upon us that we really have good news for the poor in whichever way they're poor.