January 24, 2016 The Temple in Israel by Pastor Josh Sheldon

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January 24, 2016 The Temple in Israel 2 Kings 4:8-37 Pastor Josh Sheldon

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There is a great difference between the two prophets that we've been studying,
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Elijah, who began actually about four months ago, and now Elisha, his successor.
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And one of those differences that I want us to focus in on a bit this morning is the residence of the
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Word of God in these prophets. Now they both represent the same Yahweh, the same
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God, and they both spoke the same word to the same people, which was Israel. There's no difference.
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Many of the miracles that Elisha does and will do if God grants us to continue in this series are the same as or very similar to what his master, his predecessor,
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Elijah, had done. There's many similarities. There's one huge difference between these two and the way they conducted their ministry.
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Elijah, at times, he being the Word of God to and the Word of God in Israel, Elijah, at times, was not in Israel.
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As a judgment against that apostate land, Elijah, at one time, early in chapter 17 of 1
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Kings, as we noticed, where was he? He wasn't in Israel. He was in Zarephath. He was at the Book of Cherith, excuse me.
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Outside of Israel, the Word of God for the people of God being taken away from them as a judgment against them.
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And after that, he crossed Israel, was in their border as he journeyed to the next place the
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Lord had sent him, to Zarephath, where he went to the Gentile widow and stayed with her.
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Again, the judgment being demonstrated against Israel by the removal of God's Word from them.
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Elijah never departs the borders of Israel. And a question that rises up in the text for me is this.
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Who will endeavor to bring the Word of God to stay in Israel? Who will endeavor to bring the Word of God to stay in Israel? Who will do what is necessary for this people by bringing the
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Word of God and pleading with God as it were, stay here, reside with your people,
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Lord, bless your people with this Word, show them their sin, convict them of their iniquity, and bring them by that Word to repentance?
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Who will endeavor to bring the Word of God to stay in that land?
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God sent his Word according to his purposes, and he speaks even to backslidden people.
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If he didn't speak to backslidden people, none of us would be able to claim the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. Because only dead sinners exist other than God speaks through the prophets.
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His Word brings life, and his Word brings judgment, conviction of sin, hope of redemption. It promises victory to kings in their battles, and then it threatens disaster when they disobey him, when they disregard his
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Word. This Word is prayed on behalf of the dead, and they return to life.
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It portends death to the Lord's enemies. This Word must be heard. Kings must hear it, and their subjects must be warned.
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This is the great question, I believe, in this portion of 2 Kings chapter 4.
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Who will endeavor to bring the Word of God to stay, and not depart and go outside the borders as it had with Elijah, under God's command, by God's direction, as a judgment against Israel?
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But who will intercede now for them, and keep the Word of God resident? If you look back on Elijah's ministry again, it was one of judgment.
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The prophets of Baal were judged and executed. Their sponsors, who were Ahab and Jezebel, the king and queen at the time, now in Elisha's time, dead.
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Excuse me, Ahab's dead, Jezebel has not yet met her judgment. But they heard God's Word for their final judgment.
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And in fact, Elijah's last commission was to anoint Elisha to carry out
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God's awesome and awful end for the house of Ahab. One way we can see the judgment embedded in Elijah's preaching, is that he on occasion, as I said, left the territory.
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And with him, the Word of God. They had a famine, but not of eating and drinking, a famine of hearing, of the
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Word, until Elijah returned. Again, the question, who will endeavor to keep the
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Word of God there in Israel? Well, God needs no place.
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He needs no temple to meet with man. It is men who need the temple to meet with God. It is sinners who must go to a place where the symbols of God's presence remind them that He is.
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That He rewards those who diligently seek Him. That they must repent, and that repentance, true and godly repentance, not worldly sorrow which brings only death, but true repentance for sin.
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That it brings the promise of bearing fruit to eternal life. But that Word, so necessary for our restraint, so crucial for our souls, that Word that reveals the very heart of God, so often not found, because Elijah, in judgment of Israel, had left.
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That Word must reside, it must be there. And a great question,
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I think, in 2 Kings 4, again, you will hear it again, who will endeavor to bring that Word of God to stay?
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Well, it must be someone who recognizes the need for it. It must be someone who looks and says, the Word of God must be here, this people must hear this
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Word, I must hear this Word. And as it were, plead with God not to again depart.
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And they must have the determination, they must have the wherewithal to do something to hold God's Word in place.
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Not that God's Word can be constrained or managed, it's a matter of humility and holy determination.
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It's a matter of praying that God will honor feeble mortal efforts. With Elijah carried away to heaven, the
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Word bearer is Elisha and none other. And if he wanders off, as his master so often did,
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God, as it were, goes with him. In our text this morning, which
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Steve just read to you, it falls to a woman, it falls to the Shunammite, this notable woman in Shunamm.
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It falls to her to incent the Word of God by the prophet Elisha to stay, to reside, to dwell in the land.
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To no longer be a sojourner, but a permanent resident. Her record is not simply one of hospitality to a holy man, though that is there in the verses that were read to you.
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Nor is it merely Elisha representing Elijah's miracle or repeating Elijah's miracle of bringing an only son back to life, though it is that as well.
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This history was written to and first read by the exiles in Babylon.
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We need to remember this for a moment, that in 586 Babylon came, according to God's Word, against the southern kingdom
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Judah. They broke down the wall of Jerusalem and they sacked the temple. And the first people who read this history, centuries and centuries before us, they read it and as they read it or had it read to them, as they first heard these words, do you know what they were understanding?
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What question to them was being answered? They were understanding why they were there in Babylon.
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What had they done wrong? What had their forefathers done to bring them to this sad estate? And first kings, and to a larger extent, first and second chronicles explain it.
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Because you despised the temple of God. You disregarded that place where God chose for His name to reside.
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That place where by God's design every stitch, every implement was put together to remind them to symbolize something about the
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God of all the earth. The God who had redeemed them from Egypt. They despised that temple, failed to maintain it and its priesthood.
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That temple where the glory of God fell upon it. He was so pleased with that temple it was done so correctly according to His word, that when
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His glory fell upon it, the priests had to leave. They could not continue their work until God was done sanctifying the place.
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That temple, that priesthood that served God by serving that temple. Having been so despised by Israel was the primary cause for their exile.
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For the disaster that had come upon them. They had not regarded the temple as the designated place for God to reside and for men to meet with Him.
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So who, at the time of this history, in Elisha's time, in the time of the
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Shunammite woman, Ahab's son now ruling, in this time, who is willing to give all, to sacrifice everything, to hold back nothing, to hold the word of God there in Israel?
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By the Shunammite woman's efforts, Israel had the chance to reverse their father's course. By her, a temple was founded and God, by Elisha, was pleased to reside there.
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That's what is happening in this upper room. Elisha's pattern of travel took him through her village on a regular basis.
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She recognized him as this holy man of God and so she thought to provide at least somewhat for his needs, to strengthen him in his journeying.
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And at first, it's no more extravagant than providing him with a meal. And I say no more extravagant as if I'm minimizing it, which
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I am not. So I had Steve read to you from Matthew 10, Jesus' words, that you will not lose a prophet's reward.
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We don't have to seat a person serving God down to a banquet at a fancy restaurant, but simply to serve.
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Simply to give them what they need at the moment, to carry on, to have the strength to go forward and continue in their work.
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So she was doing that. She was providing him in his going back and forth in this village of Shunamm for what he needed physically.
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The needs of his body to have strength to continue the work. And at first, it's no more extravagant, it's no bigger than that.
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She knew only this. She knew Elisha was a man of God and that the land needed that word that this man of God brought.
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And she knew that the land needed that word that this man brought to stay and not go to a brook like Cherith, as Elisha had done, or to a
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Gentile nation like Zarephath, as Elisha had done. She knew that the word of God needed to remain.
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After some time, though, just giving him the food, these meals, it's not enough. She seeks her husband's permission to build this upper room for Elisha.
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Not for any commercial gain, not for anything to show off how good and pious she and her family are, not for anything like that.
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The only cause for ambition being provided is being to, in some way, be a part of Elisha's ministry and to bring the word of God into permanency.
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The meals will still be provided, but now he'll have a room with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp stand. Not just the bare necessities, though.
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Now, for what I'm saying here, for this point that I keep driving home about this temple that she made,
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I'm very indebted to the Westminster scholar Peter Lightheart for his analysis of this room and its furnishings.
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In my own work on this passage, I saw that, yes, one difference between these prophets is, as I said, Elisha sometimes went outside the borders.
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Elisha never did. And it is Peter Lightheart's work that actually brought it together for me.
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This idea of the temple. What we have in this upper room is exactly that, a temple. You see, in the northern tribes in northern
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Israel, after the split between the two kingdoms, with Judah and Levi staying in the south, in the north, there was no such place for God's presence.
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They had no temple at all. The whole land, except for the 7 ,000
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God -reserved to himself, were given over to idolatry. And following the sin of their first king,
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Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, priests were recruited from any and all tribes. Whoever could pay the entrance fee, whoever pleased the king, whoever could do the duties, as it were, was simply made a priest.
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The only temples they had were temples dedicated to false gods, abominable gods to idols.
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The Shunammite, with the upper room and its accoutrements, can reverse that.
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As we look and see what was provided there and why we have the details that God, by his
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Spirit, gives us here in 2 Kings 4, the bed corresponds to the altar in the temple in Jerusalem.
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And the table is the one that corresponds to the table in Jerusalem that holds the showbread, the daily offerings to God, and thanks for what he has provided.
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She puts in a lampstand. A menorah, just like in the temples in the south.
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If the temple in the south was confirmed when God's glory fell upon it, here this smaller, more humble temple is confirmed by what?
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By the continued presence of God in Israel through Elisha, who was not sent out of those borders.
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Confirmed by his word through and the works of Elisha. Now later, when she goes to Mount Carmel to find
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Elisha, her husband asks her something, and this confirms this idea that this upper room is a temple, that Elisha, representing
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God, is really sort of the temple of God there in Israel. When she goes to her husband and says,
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I need to go to the prophet, he says, why are you going to him today? It is neither the new moon nor the
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Sabbath. This tells us something that's very important here. It tells us that through Elisha, Israel was able to fulfill the festival calendar, something the law of God required to be done at the temple.
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Now when she found him, he was at Mount Carmel, not at that moment in the upper room, but the text is clear that she went regularly to him, to Elisha, to celebrate those festivals, which was a distinctly temple function.
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In all this, Elisha represents God. This means that he cannot be approached directly, but only through an intermediary.
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And again, thinking in this temple motif and all that went on at the temple in Jerusalem, how did people come to God?
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Through the priest. And here in 2 Kings 4, there's an intermediary between Elisha and those who would approach him.
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Here the Shunammite woman. And who is that intermediary? But Gehazi. It's Gehazi.
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This accounts for the odd way Elisha has of communicating with the woman where he tells
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Gehazi, say to her, and then he tells him what to say to her. And though we don't have the quote repeated in scripture, it's apparent that Gehazi took those words and with her standing right there, told her what
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Elisha had said. It's not because he's a misogynist. There's no male -female tension here.
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Nothing like that. It's because at the temple, a mediator is necessary.
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That's why the temple housed the priests. In the old dispensation, access to God was through that, through the high priest, who, as it were, delivers the supplicant to the feet of the
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Lord. I mean, it's well said that the prophets brought God to the people, and the priests brought the people to God.
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And after a time in this upper room, Elisha tells his priest,
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Gehazi, say now to her, this is that odd communication style he has, now we understand it, say now to her, look, you've been concerned for us with all this care.
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What can I do for you? Do you want me to speak on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army? It's not to say that God owes us anything for our service to him.
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Having close communion with him is reward enough. But her service has been unique and overbounding.
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No one else in that dark and dead land seems at all concerned that God should dwell with them.
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After his service to kings Jehoram and Josaphat, back when they had that Moabite campaign in 2
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Kings 3, after Elisha's service to them, he seems to have had status and an access to the courts.
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So he offers her no special advantage, but will, if need be, use his influence in the court to right any wrongs.
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That's why he says, can I go to the king for you? Can I go to the commander of the army on your behalf? Not to give her any extra advantage, but simply to go to the king and say we must do what's right.
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Because he seems to have had that access now. And she declines gracefully.
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Again, to our ears it sounds an odd statement. She says, I dwell among my own people. In other words, no. There is no need to bring anything here to the attention of Ahab's son.
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We live peaceably. We are well satisfied. She will not press for special privileges. She will not use her ministry as a pride for any extraordinary gain.
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And here she is willing to leave the matter. Elisha says, what can I do for you? She basically says,
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I'm satisfied simply to serve God by serving you and providing this upper room, this temple.
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But here Gehazi is introduced to us.
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And we're gonna take a little time with Gehazi because he's gonna be so important not only here in this passage, but most especially when we get to the next chapter.
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Second Kings 5 where we have Naaman the leper. And I'm not gonna give too much of that away because Lord willing, in a few weeks we will get to that one.
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But Gehazi becomes very important. And I would dub him Gehazi the shrewd because here he intervenes when
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Elisha says, what can I do? She says, really nothing. I'm simply satisfied with what
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I have in this world and I'm pleased to be serving God by serving you.
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But Gehazi, Gehazi can't let an opportunity slip by. And many of you are thinking forward to Second Kings 5 and that's fine when
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Naaman the leper after having been healed of his leprosy offers great wealth to Elisha who refuses it.
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Gehazi says, oh no, we can't let that money go by and chases after Naaman and gets himself some gold and silver.
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This is the same Gehazi, this shrewd man. He can't let the opportunity go by.
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Now he's obviously a failed priest and there are many failed priests in the Scripture so that's not unusual.
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That's not a point for us to get concerned about really. And what does he see?
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He sees worldly gain available. She was a notable woman. Some translations say she was a rich woman.
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But he sees personal advantage, temporal gain, opportunity.
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If only he can procure some gift of the Spirit for her, maybe she'll pay him for it. So he falls in the mold of Jonadab.
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Do you remember him? Jonadab described in 2 Samuel 13, 5 as a very crafty man.
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This is the one who reigned for Tamar, daughter of King David, to be alone and vulnerable to her half -brother
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Amnon. Tamar was horribly recompensed for her ministry to her supposedly sick brother with rape, with this incident that precipitated the greatest crisis in David's reign.
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I would put Gehazi in his class. He's a watcher.
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He's not a prayer. He's a watcher. He looks for advantage for self, not for others. His eyes are pure flesh and they search to and fro for what?
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For self -promotion, for enrichment. He gives us a prefiguring of the worst of all such men, which is
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Judas, who betrayed the Lord Jesus no less than Gehazi will betray
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Elisha. And yet for having betrayed a greater than Elisha, having received more light than Gehazi ever would,
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Judas is, of course, the ultimate traitor, prefigured, I believe, by Gehazi.
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And even though Judas threw his blood money back to the Pharisees and Gehazi, it seems, kept his proceeds craftily obtained from Naaman.
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And all this we will get to when the Lord grants us progress to 2 Kings 5. His crime, though of the same type, is in Scripture the most traitorous act ever committed.
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Oh, we spend so much time on Gehazi here because in the same way we are warned in John 12, verse 6, about Judas' character,
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John the evangelist says, this he, meaning Judas, this he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the money box and he used to take what was put in it.
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In the same way that John in that gospel warns us about Judas, we are here given notice of Gehazi's character.
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What's to be done for her? She's satisfied to serve God through the prophet and Gehazi just cannot repress his fascination for worldly gain.
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You see, the conversation could have stopped right there. When he interjects the woman's desire for a son, he spoke out of turn.
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Elisha, though, cannot allow such a thing to have been exposed and leave her destitute of hope. God does not allow the peelers, the layers, excuse me, be peeled away for our hurts, for our sorrows, for our needs to be exposed like that and not step in and do something about them to grant us comfort by his spirit.
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If not, through some ministry, actual alleviation of a physical need, a temporal need.
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When he interjects the woman's desire for a son, he's butting in. This conversation should have ended.
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Gehazi has stripped away her godly contentment. Elisha, in God's name, repairs the rent in her spiritual fabric.
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Now, if I seem to be reading into the text, I can only plead that his intercourse with Naaman in the next chapter proves my case.
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He does hit the nail on the head, bringing to the prophet her greatest disappointment, which she didn't bring up, by the way.
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And I do not believe that Gehazi's insight was some spiritual revelation that he received from the
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Lord. I think he's a watcher. I think he's an observer. I think he's peering around corners.
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He's listening to people. He's collecting data. And so he knew her weakness, which was really none of his business.
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And worldly wisdom often does this. It exposes the griefs we carry, but it has no answer, but willing enough to expose them.
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And we need to take a lesson from this, don't we? We sometimes have an insight into the hurts and the agonies of another.
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Is it necessary to make this known, to strip a soul bare? It could be. It requires wisdom.
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It requires discernment, restraint. Just because we know something, even if we're right, doesn't mean it needs to be said.
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It could be that God has, by His Spirit, given you this understanding, this glimpse into a struggling soul's true tortures.
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But I warn you, though, do not tear that wound open unless you are ready to stay and apply the healing balm, whatever it takes, however long, however much effort it is, however many times you need to meet at Starbucks or simply hold a person's hand or give them a shoulder to weep on or to see another face taking joy with them over something.
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Don't be like a hossy and strip something away and expose it and say, there, that's your problem.
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Gotta go. Oh, Lord, let us never be that, people. You may see a speck in your brother's eye.
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Get the beam out of your own and then, no matter what it takes, help your brother with his fault, as the
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Lord Jesus, by the way, commands. And if we haven't that commitment, if we haven't that endurance, if we haven't that faithfulness to God and His Word, let me suggest we don't even get started because to leave people with everything exposed, with nothing but their hurts confessed and not take that next step, that biblically required step, is a travesty.
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If you haven't the answer of the gospel at hand, if you're unwilling or unable to repair the wound you'll make, you bring only worldly sorrow, which
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Paul says brings only death. And Gehazi's entreaty is like that. She's satisfied with God's will for her.
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She's rerouted the energies that a child would demand into the service of God. Who's Gehazi speaking for?
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He's speaking for himself. He's pretending to be concerned for her. He stirs up only discontent.
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He had no right to broadcast her deepest desire. And her response shows just how accurate he was.
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And worldly wisdom can do this. But as I'm pleading with you, remember it has no answer.
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It has no cure. It has no balm to put on the wound. It says, No, my
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Lord, man of God, do not lie to your maidservant. Now she doesn't mean to imply that Elisha could be a liar.
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She said he's a holy man of God. But she's been stripped away here.
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All the defensive barriers torn down by Gehazi. And she says this over and over, begging him to withdraw his promise if there is even a chance of it not coming true.
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With tears she pleads she'd rather remain barren than to have her hopes so raised if they're only going to be shattered.
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Gehazi has no answer. The world has no answer. He can't. The world can't. He doesn't care to mend the damage done and neither, brethren, would the world.
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It is Elisha. And who does Elisha represent? God. This is how high his position as prophet is.
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He's not God. He's not a God. Nothing even close. We're not implying. He's a man with a nature like ours.
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His feet like yours and mine are feet of clay. But here at this time in this place he does represent
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God Almighty. So I say
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Elisha intercedes. You can hear just as accurately God intercedes.
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Not allowing the exposure of her sorrow to stop there but in the name of the Lord his God Elisha promises her a son.
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And this is as much a gift to the Shunammite as a rebuke to Gehazi. When you think back again to Judas, Judas was warned that Jesus knew his plan.
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He might have repented. Did not Judas warn him? I know what you're going to do. He proved he knew what was in men's hearts.
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That man's heart. Gehazi here thinks he's exposed her need which
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I believe he's doing for his own gain somehow. He thinks that's what he's done. But what's really been exposed?
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His wicked heart. His wicked heart has exposed, been exposed much more
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I believe than the Shunammite's heartache. Let's press forward. She has a son.
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You had the whole history read to you by Steve a few moments ago. She has a son for God's promises are sure and they are without repentance.
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The boy goes out to see his father during the harvest. You see as soon as he leaves the maternal protection he suffers the only thing the idol ridden land really has to offer.
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And what's that? Death. He dies. Now you can read some long analyses of just what struck the boy and they can be very interesting.
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But a precise diagnosis of what killed him is not only impossible to make it adds little if anything to the text.
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What happens? This gift of God, this son according to God's promise given to the
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Shunammite woman as soon as he steps off his mother's lap goes out into this idol infested land he suffers something probably a heat stroke and dies.
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Well the boy is sent from the field back to the mother. When the father tells someone to pick him up bring him back to his mother.
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And what shall she do? This Shunammite woman this woman who I say is endeavoring to bring the word of God to stay who built this temple for the word of God to reside through Elisha there in the land.
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Here she has her son at that time dying if not dead already. What shall she do?
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The answer is pretty clear. It's to the prophet. To the prophet.
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Her husband says why go there? It's not one of the festivals where we must present ourselves as at the temple. Why bother him out of turn?
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As if our heavenly father needs a rest as if he ever tires of hearing our needs. She was the first place where we all must go and not really even the first place the only place the only one.
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That's to God. Does not the word of God promise that we can enter boldly to the throne of grace and there find help in our time of need?
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It's not just a dream or a wish or some esoteric promise. That's the sure and certain forever cast in heaven word of God.
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Where does she go? To the doctors? I have nothing against going to the doctors.
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I suggest it actually. But on the way to the doctor no matter what the emergency to the prophet, to God, to the word, to prayer.
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He sends Gehazi and really to sum up everything he tells Gehazi to find he says find out what's wrong.
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Find out what's wrong. Her answer sounds a little odd again. It is well. No, she doesn't want to speak to Gehazi.
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I think he's been exposed. She needs to go to the prophet. It is well if I am in the will of God.
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If he takes the lad, it is well. If he restores, it is well. But see her hope. See her faith.
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See what trust she has in God to go first to him rather than to mourn or arrange for a funeral.
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First to God through Elisha. What's that mean to us?
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It means to Jesus in our travail. Go to him to the foot of the cross.
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We live in a world as the hymn says with devil's field. They threaten what? They threaten to undo us.
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The tribulations we face are common to all mankind but our answer is not common to all mankind.
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The troubles we face are but not our answer. What's our answer? To the cross. To the feet of our
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him. To the throne of grace which acts as is paid by the blood of our
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Redeemer. The captain of our salvation who is Jesus. And then come what may, it is well.
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In the Hebrew it's just one word. It's just well. You see in most of your Bibles it's supplied.
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It is. I wish they didn't do that. What's wrong?
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My master wants to know. Well. I'm on my way to him.
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Gehazi get out of my way. I'm going to where it is well. Why does she say that to him?
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Why didn't she tell him to go back to Elisha I'll be right behind you and tell him I need help with my son.
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Does she perceive his fleshliness? I mean Gehazi's? Has woman's intuition made her refuse to share her heart with this man after what he did before?
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By exposing her as he did but having no help to give? No concern even to give help?
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Or has the Spirit of God driven her past this creature in whom resides only ambition but nothing of the
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Spirit? And she wants no more to do with him. She rushes past this companion to Job's comforters and clasps herself to the only hope she has to hear from God by the man of God.
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The one she said was a holy man of God. Now here's an example for us.
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To flee to Christ. To go to that throne of grace. She's joined here by the woman with the flow of blood who had wasted all her money on physicians but only grew worse.
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Dr. Gehazi was of no help to her. She is the Syrophoenician woman grasping for help from the
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Word of God, satisfied with crumbs if only they fall from the Lord's table. The ten lepers would understand with her that only
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God can help. Her company is the disciples when Peter said that they had left all to follow him, to follow
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Jesus. She's with them all at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Her faith is in the promise to come. Later in the promise that came.
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But she goes for the same grace of the same God dispensed by the same Savior, Jesus Christ.
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And note this Gehazi, this Judas, again. When she finally gets to Elisha, to the temple, again, as it were.
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She's where she needs to be, where she had rushed to go. And what's he doing? Pushing her away.
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Trying to get her clasp onto the ankles of this prophet to break and take her away from him.
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As though a mere man has the right to deny God to any other. Remember the rebuke of our
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Lord to allow the children to come to him. Remember his rebuke when the woman was castigated for anointing him.
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Do you want to see a litmus test for true Christian faith? I think it's right here. The Christian loves to depend on God by faith in Jesus Christ.
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The world hates this. The world hates to see such dependence. They call us weaklings. The Christian loves to see
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Christ glorified. And how better glorified than us as our brother Steve so often prays, confessing our complete and utter lack of ability and dependence upon him for everything we have.
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From your next breath to the gas in your car when you drive home to the dinner you'll eat tonight.
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We revel in such dependence, such inadequacy. The Christian loves to see
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Christ glorified. The world forces him down low to the level of fable, myth.
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The Christian delights to offer free and unfettered access to God. The world delights in surrounding him with barriers.
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Where does Gehazi stand in all this? Pulling the woman away? Why does
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Elisha in this second meeting speak directly to her? Whereas beforehand he had spoke through Gehazi.
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Access to God was mediated by the priest with Elisha representing God and Gehazi the priest.
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We covered that. The woman's response to God's promise of a son was to beg him not to deceive her.
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She thought God too small to do such a thing maybe. Or maybe she considered him too distracted with the greater affairs of history to bother with her trivial concerns.
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Whatever the case is when the promise was made if she disbelieved it she disbelieved
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God. God's promises are unbelievable and yet we are called to believe them.
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They are inconceivable that so is the power of him who promises. It is preposterous to us that God would save sinners.
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If it's not incredible to you then you haven't peered over the chasm separating you from him.
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You haven't rightly reckoned the depth of your sin which is deeper than any ocean nor have you rightly reckoned the purity of God which is as far from our iniquity as the heavens are from earth.
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It's too outlandish to even consider that such a one as God would dwell gladly with such as me or you.
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So we say with her no Lord do not deceive me no matter this huge vastness the unbelievable sheer bigness of God's promises.
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On the authority of scripture I can tell you he never deceives. It is impossible for God to lie.
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He is always and only true to his own nature which is perfection such perfection that we say
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God doesn't do something because it's right it's right because he does it or because he says it. I mean he didn't deceive us when he sent his son to die for our sins that whosoever should believe in him believe in this gospel might be saved might have eternal life enjoy a hope that is eternal rejoicing before him.
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God didn't lie when he said that. He's not deceiving you now. Is the promise too big to be believed?
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Yes except for the God who promises. No not deception a settled word a promise that if you will repent of your sins if you will flee to Christ if you will believe the gospel of salvation and place all your trust and hope in what
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Christ did on the cross where he bore our sins in his own body as he hung on the tree if you will repent for those sins for which he then paid on that terrible cross if you will believe that God sent his son of the virgin he died for your sins he was dead and buried on the third day
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God raised him up and then he ascended to heaven he seated at God's right hand if you will believe this and set your hope for eternal life in him the promise of scripture incredible too big to be believed too vast to be apprehended is this you shall be saved no it's too big a promise for us to even have manufactured and we can only state it because of the
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God behind that word well the
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Shunammite comes this time fully confident in the God who was able to do all these things if she held out even the possibility of being deceived even the slightest thought that the word of God through Elisha was not for her to whom it was being spoken the birth of her son was all the proof she needed to repent of that and to put her faith totally in God and her faith that bruised reed that smoking flax had gone from birth to maturity it had met its first test and found itself tenderly nurtured by the
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Lord she believed in the God of all promise and so on her faith she goes around the priest and to God by his chosen vessel
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Elisha as Paul says by faith we have access with boldness and I ask us are we not here rebuked for our stoicism for pretending that emotions negate a true religion
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I mean Gehazi might have thought woman show some composure where's your dignity this is
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Elisha he's the roving temple as it were where's your decorum as she approached neither
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Gehazi or Elisha were immediately privy to her heart Elisha confessed the
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Lord has not revealed to me what is going on with her but the difference between the two men is crucial
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Elisha is concerned to see her distressed Gehazi is only concerned that she might be wasting the prophet's time imagine the outward signs of distress she must have worn and how obtuse he
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Gehazi must have been to miss them Elisha saw that her trouble was more than just some small matter her soul meaning her innermost person herself that part of her that was shared only with God he said her soul is in deep distress why is the
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Lord hidden the cause of all this from him maybe two reasons first is to make clear the contrast between the mercenary
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Gehazi and the man of God Elisha the second it is our duty to bring our cares before God there is no more priest or priesthood in the old sense that brings us to God as they did then instead
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Peter tells us the same Peter who says you are a kingdom of priests meaning you with faith in Jesus Christ are a royal priesthood that same
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Peter says therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time casting all your care upon him for he cares for you
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I can't do this for you I can pray with you or a brother and sister can pray with you as you cast your cares upon God but I cannot intercede for you and bring your cares to God you must and that's all in the name of Jesus Christ one mediator between man and God the man
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Jesus Christ one mediator him and him alone not your wife not your husband not your best friend not even your parents we pray with each other we plead with one another to go to God but ultimately if your faith is in the
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Lord Jesus Christ you must go to God in his name on your own to her husband she said it is well to Gehazi she says it is well to Elisha she said did
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I ask a son of my Lord did I not say do not deceive me her heart laid bare her pride is abandoned she's at the prophet's feet not because of anything in him but because of the
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God he represents the God whose mercy worked through Elisha brought her to the joy of a son she's now at the feet of Elisha representing the
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God whose promise she now trusts we need to end quickly here
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I spent so much time on Gehazi but Elisha sends him ahead to go to the child and lay a staff on him
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I don't think he was sent to try to bring him back to life Gehazi was sent to mark the child out as God's I don't mean he was saved in the ultimate sense
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I mean his tomb was sealed and his opening was reserved for God God through Elisha would do what needs to be done and of course the boy was returned to life and to his mother when
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Elisha went and lay on him and matched his body to his and then the boy the boy became warm he sneezed seven times and was returned to his mother and this is our history of the
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Shunammite and Elisha with a harbinger here of Gehazi's true nature this is a testimony to captive Israel back then when this was first read as to why they were captive because of the temple for not caring that God's word would be with them for not being concerned about the place where God chose for his word to dwell the priesthood that brought the people to God here is a testimony to them to repent to abandon the ways of their forefathers that had brought them to this terrible past here is a testimony to lost and dead sinners from then to today
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God's word is here God's word does reside he has not taken it away but he has made sure that it is preached far and wide we preach in the name of Jesus Christ the living word in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word that's
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Jesus Christ the person of Christ the second person of the Trinity eternal God the word was
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God no more outside the borders but dwelling amongst us the word became flesh and dwelt among us says
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John this is your testimony to lost and dead sinners that God's word is here he has not taken it away he's made sure that you're hearing it this day the
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Bible says that faith is a gift it also says that faith comes by hearing what? the word of God if you will hear not just the words but the call of God who gave us this word if you will make your plea to God that he grant you faith to hear rightly to repent and believe this gospel you will be saved as much as the boy was brought back to life
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Ephesians 2 says for you who are dead in trespass and sin he made alive is that not a great lesson?
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of all the revivals the resurrections we see in the Old Testament what Elijah did for the widow in Zarephath with her son what
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Elisha has done here to raise dead sinners to life to take out a heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh that can love and respond to God if this passage points to anything it must be that ultimately it's a warning
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I think to us if not an encouragement to take in the apostles words regarding the temple not the one in the south not the one in Jerusalem not this upper room as beautiful as that was that the
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Shunammite made what Paul says do you not know that you speaking to the faithful in Christ that you are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you the spirit of God with the word of God the spirit of God constantly revealing
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Jesus Christ to us the spirit of God dwells in you if Jesus Christ is yours if anyone defiles the temple of God God will destroy him for the temple of God is holy which temple you are the promise of God's presence has been kept and that in the temple of God which today and now is the people of God even the people of God here in this one place
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Amen Lord God for all your promises we do give you thanks and for showing us yourself again to be a
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God of life a God of restoration we thank you Father and may you
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Father by your spirit move us to a greater regard for the things of God for the temple of God which is our body all of us together as an assembly both individually and as a corporate people
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Father may we have a right regard for this we thank you Father for the indwelling word of God which is able to save our souls we thank you
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Father that Jesus Christ the very word of God does dwell amongst us and will not be taken away and for all this we give you thanks in his name