The Shunammite Woman - Submissive Faith — Joel Beeke

The Shunammite Woman - Submissive Faith — Joel Beeke

Will you turn with me to the second book of Kings, chapter 4, and we'll commence reading at verse 18 to verse 37, and this is from the authorised version of the scriptures. To Kings 4 and verse 18. And when the child was grown, it fell on a day that he went out to his father, to the reapers.

And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on his knees till noon, and then died. And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him and went out.

And she called unto her husband and said, Send me, I pray thee, one of the young men and one of the asses, that I may run to the man of God and come again. And he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him today?

It is neither new moon nor sabbath. And she said, It shall be well. Then she saddled an ass and said to her servant, Drive and go forward. Slack not thy riding for me, except I bid thee. So she went and came unto the man of God, to Mount Carmel.

And it came to pass, when the man of God saw her afar off, and he said to Gehazi, his servant, Behold, yonder is the Shumanite. Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, It is well with thee.

Is it well with thee? It is well with thy husband? Is it well with thy child? And she answered, It is well. And when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet. But Gehazi came near to thrust her away, and the man of God said, Let her alone, for her soul is vexed within her, and the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me.

Then she said, Did I desire a son of my Lord? Did I not say, Do not deceive me? Then he said to Gehazi, Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thy hand, and go thy way. If thou meet any man, salute him not, and if any salute thee, answer him not again, and lay my staff upon the face of the child.

And the mother of the child said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And he arose and followed her. And Gehazi passed on before them, and laid his staff upon the face of the child, but there was neither voice nor hearing.

Wherefore he went again to meet him, and told him, Say, The child is not awaked. And when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid upon his bed. He went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord.

And he went up, and laid upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm.

Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro, and went up, and stretched himself upon him, and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. And he called Gehazi, and said, Call this Shumanite.

So he called her, and when she was come in unto him, he said, Take up thy son. Then she went in, and fell at his feet, and bowed herself to the ground, and took up her son, and went out.

Submissive Faith Under God’s Providential Crosses

God knows, dear friends, that we are in desperate need as Christians for true submission to all the ways of God. There was perhaps, you heard, a woman in America, a Christian woman, who was very rebellious under some ways of God with her on a certain occasion, and said to God, I would trade my cross for anyone else's.

That night, she had a dream, and in her dream, everyone in her block put their crosses out on their front lawn, and in her dream, she went from cross to cross. She looked at the first cross, and said, Well, I think I'll pass on this one.

I'll go, I'll try another one. She went to the next, she passed again. Finally, she came to a home where there's no cross on the front lawn at all. She went to the door, and she rang the bell, and a woman came to the door, and she said, My dear friend, may I trade my set of afflictions with yours?

You can take my crosses, and I will take yours. She said, Honey, you don't want mine, mine are too big to get out the door. When this woman awoke, she realized that her rebellion was out of place, and that God's cross was just right for her, and that she had no business trying to change God's providential leadings with her, but she needed submissive faith to trust in the ways of God.

Dear friend, if you're a Christian, I say to you without any hesitation, God has never made one mistake with you your whole lifetime. He's never given you one cross too many or one cross too few. He's never given you a cross that didn't profit you.

What you need is daily, genuine, submissive faith. Faith to amen God's ways. Faith to receive what He, in His inscrutable wisdom, deems fitting to put upon you. You need faith to trust Him with every affliction.

God makes no mistakes. Look back just a moment in your life. Scan your life. Has the Lord ever done you ill? Why are some of us chafing under our present crosses? What need we have today in a world that abhors and hates submission?

The very word submission is degraded, but it's a beautiful word in God's eyes. Martin Luther said, letting God be God is half of all true religion. Bowing under God's ways lies at the heartbeat of true and vital Christianity.

And at the heartbeat of the rare jewel, as Jeremiah Burroughs put it, of Christian contentment. So this morning we want to take inventory. You know what inventory does. Inventory does three things, doesn't it?

It helps a business look at its present stock, its present condition. It helps a business look at its past to see how well they've done. And it helps a business look at the future to see if they continue on in the direction they are going, whether or not that direction will be profitable for them.

So this morning I want you to come with me and I pray the Holy Spirit that He will enable us, every one of us, myself included, to take spiritual inventory of where we are and where we have come from and where we are going with regard to this cardinal issue of daily submissive faith.

“It Shall Be Well”: Faith for the Future

So with God's help, I want to look with you at 2 Kings 4, verses 23, the second part, and all of verse 26. Verse 23, the second part, And she said, It shall be well. Verse 26, Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, And say unto her, Is it well with thee?

Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child? She answered, It is well. Now yesterday you recall that we saw that one of the best ways to grasp various aspects of saving faith is to study the biblical portraits of faith.

And we committed ourselves yesterday, you remember, to looking at four portraits these mornings that are not commonly looked at, that are not included, at least not explicitly in Hebrews 11, they are implicitly, of course, because the author to the Hebrews says that there are many others who live by faith.

Well, we're looking at some of those many others, aren't we, in these days. But we're picking out four of the many, many choices we could pick out from the Bible that particularly address aspects of faith that are sorely needed.

Aspects in which we are sorely shortchanging ourselves today by ignoring them or rejecting them. And so yesterday we saw that Bill Adam, as our covenant head, was responsible for plunging the entire human race into sin.

Romans 5, 1 Corinthians 15. And thus as covenant head stands in opposition to the second Adam, Jesus Christ, God personally for Adam, as well as for Eve, overrode the seriousness of this serious sin they committed by granting them stupendous, amazing grace to personally believe the promises of God.

We saw then that Adam and Eve are examples of simple childlike faith and how sorely we need that today. For today we have thousands of promises. They responded to one, and we often let thousands go by.

One old Puritan, William Spurstow, has a wonderful book on the promises of God, The Wells of Salvation Open, said God's promises by the thousands in Scripture are like a big bag of gold and coins. And when you open the Bible, God takes that bag and He lays it at your feet and He unties the string and He throws the coins at your feet.

He says, take what you will. Well, Adam and Eve did that with the one golden coin they received. So yesterday we took inventory, didn't we, of how we use the promises of God and of the simplicity and childlike character of our own faith in trusting God.

But this morning, we need to ask the question, how do we live out that simple childlike faith day by day, particularly when it comes to times of trouble and affliction and sorrow and need? Now we all face those times, saved or unsaved.

Affliction as the Common Inheritance of Fallen Humanity

Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. That's part of our inheritance as children of the first Adam. So I don't ask you this morning, are you afflicted? I don't ask you, have you been afflicted?

We know the answer. Everyone has their crosses. You have your own set. You have been afflicted. Sometimes in your life, those afflictions have been more intense than other times, haven't they? Nor do I ask you, the real question is also not this, where do these afflictions come from?

You know where they come from. You know that they're traceable back to our fallen Adam, back to sin ultimately. You know too, if you're a Christian, that they're sent to you by a wise and fatherly God.

That's not really the question. The question is, how are you responding to affliction? Are you running from them? Are you powering before them? Are you trying to get out of God's gymnasium in which He's training you under His afflicting rod?

Or are you submitting by faith to all God's dealings with you? Do those around you, your spouse, your children, your parents, your friends, do they look at you and say, you can see the vitality of that person's, of your Christianity by the way you respond to affliction?

You see, the world watches Christians very closely. And Christians are never so closely watched as when God in His inscrutable wisdom deems it fitting to put them in the furnace of His affliction. And if you're a Christian who is really walking with God, you know what it means to struggle under affliction with this critical question, Lord, how can I live as a Christian under affliction?

How can I honor Thee in affliction? How can I respond to it rightly by being prepared for it before it comes? And walking godly when it is resting upon me and after it is over, looking back gratefully upon it.

If you're like me, you don't worry too much about the afflictions that will come, about God taking care of you in them. But you are concerned about this question. How can I honor God in my afflictions?

How can I not be like the world? How can I have a better conviction, a better philosophy, a better approach to affliction than simply saying, I resist them? Or stoically saying, I have to grin and bear it?

How can I respond as a Christian to affliction? How can solely Deo Gloria be magnified in God's afflictions in my life? That's the question. Now of course we need the Holy Spirit for that. You know that.

I know that. But the Spirit is as willing to give Himself as Christ was willing to give Himself on the cross and as willing as the Father is to give the Son. So the real question then is, how does the Holy Spirit work this?

How does He make me willing and how can I respond to these overtures and these leadings so that my life reflects the glory of God through the Spirit by faith in affliction? Well we want to look at three things in the Shunammite woman's life as we see her as a mentor in this aspect of submissive faith for us.

Three Expressions of the Shunammite Woman’s Submissive Faith

First of all, looking at verse 23, I want to consider with you her submissive faith for the future. It shall be well. Secondly, I want to look with you at her submissive faith in the present, verse 26.

It is well. And then thirdly, we want to take that faith and make some applications to our present situation. So submissive faith. Looking at the future, looking at the past, looking at the present. We go in our thoughts this morning, friends, to a little city named Shunamm, five miles north of Jezreel called Solom today, still existing today as a little village, 15 miles from Mount Carmel.

To this little village, Elisha had the custom of stopping from time to time on his way to Carmel to give theological lessons to his school of the prophets that resided on Carmel. And when he went through Shunamm, he customarily stayed at the home of a great woman, the Bible says.

A woman great in faith. And already in the opening verses, which were not read to you, we find things about this woman that we admire greatly. For one thing, what happens is that Elisha is so grateful to this woman that he calls Gehazi and has Gehazi try to find out something that this woman might desire so that he could give a return favor to her.

And the woman responds, as you know, I dwell among my own people. That's an amazing response. She's childless. You know what it was to have no children in Bible times. It was a sign of God's finger of judgment against you.

Every woman wanted, cherished the secret hope that in her loins might be the Messiah. And it was often considered to be one of God's greatest curses. And yet when Gehazi asked her, this woman makes no mention of her childless condition.

She says, I dwell among my own people. I'm content. She had that rare jewel of godly contentment. And what a blessing that is. What a blessing it is to see a child of God living under crosses, fully content with the ways of God.

May I ask you already, because here our inventory begins already. Do you amen the ways of God in your life? Even when they are against your flesh? Can you say, I am just content to dwell among the people of God?

Well, then of course you know that Elisha does something amazing. He prophesies that one year from now, you, my dear woman, are going to have a son. And it happens. Much to her astonishment, after all those years of childlessness, the lad grows up and is of course the joy of the mother and father too, no doubt.

A child of promise. A child sent by God. A special child. And as a young man, or perhaps a ten or twelve year old child or so, the mother sends the child out to work with dad in the field. And one day the child has a sun stroke, most likely.

And the child's head begins to hurt very badly. He says to his dad, my head, my head. Well, his dad, not realizing the seriousness of it, says to one of his workers, carry my son home to his mother. And the child comes to the mother, and you heard read to you, sits on her knees until noon and dies.

A son of promise. The son God had so wonderfully given. The son that symbolized everything to this woman about His covenant faithfulness. That He was a God of impossibilities and a God of goodness and kindness.

This only son died. Given so miraculously. Taken so early. You can imagine the questions. Was this all in God's disfavor? Did God give us this child to torment us? What is God saying? You know, it's one of the greatest struggles in life to lose a child.

I've seen people cry hard when they've lost a parent. But the hardest tears I've ever seen as a pastor have consistently been when parents had to go the unnatural way of bringing their own children to the grave.

Oh, what a trial. Lord, must it be so? Lord, how can this all work together for good? My only son. Dead. But what does this woman do? Verse 21. She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God and shut the door upon him and went out.

She did three things. All three things, friends, are acts of faith. First, she laid him on the bed of the man of God. That's an astonishing thing, because you know in Israel, anything that came into contact with the dead was considered unclean.

So here we have the first hint, don't we, that this woman believes that somehow the God of Elisha is going to raise this son again from the dead. Otherwise, why would she make that special chamber that she had particularly added onto her home for the prophet unclean?

Certainly, there's nothing to indicate in this chapter anywhere that she does this out of rebellion and enmity against the prophet. She lays him on the bed of the man of God because the God of Elisha, the God who wondrously gave her son, she believes is able to wondrously raise him from the dead.

So here already we see her faith. She lays him on the bed of the man of God. Secondly, she shuts the door on him. That's remarkable. In Bible times, you know, with a hot climate, when someone died, they had to make preparations immediately for his burial.

The burial often took place the same day. There was lots to do. Mourners had to be hired. People had to be gathered. Word had to be sent. This woman shuts it all off. You'd almost want to tap her on the shoulder and say, I know you're distressed, but do you realize what you're doing?

If someone finds your son dead and you leave and you go see the prophet and you're 15 miles away at Mount Carmel, what kind of a mother are you? What are people going to say? You abandoned a dead child.

No, she shuts the door upon him. She doesn't want anyone to find him. She doesn't want the mockers to have their gainsane hour. She doesn't want the enemies of God and the false prophets to rejoice in the death of her son.

She believes. And she submits at the same time. And then she went out. She went out by faith. She's tried to the point of extremity, and yet she's driven out of herself to Elisha, which of course symbolically means to the God of Elisha for help and for solution.

But then there's another trial. Elisha's 15 miles away. Women aren't supposed to take long journeys by themselves in Bible times. But never mind. She sends a message to her husband. You see, faith is very inventive.

Faith is enormously inventive. Faith climbs over walls. Faith climbs on roofs. Remember the four men that climbed on the roof and let the man who was sick of the pulsy, the paralyzed man, down at the feet of Jesus?

So nothing stops faith. You see, faith drives on. Faith must have communion with God. Faith must be in His presence. She says to her husband, send me one of the asses and one of the young men that I may ride to the man of God and come again.

Another obstacle. Her husband responds, well, but why? Wherefore wilt thou go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath. It shall be well. She doesn't write a whole chapter of explanation. She doesn't go out and have a long dialogue with him and give him all the details of why she's going and justify herself.

She says in Hebrew, one word, Shalom. Peace. Is your only son dead at home? Shalom. Was she being hypocritical? Was she trying to hide something from her husband? Shalom. It shall be well. It's future oriented.

God will make it well. I will trust Him for the future. The God who's been faithful in the past will be faithful in the future. And no matter what He does or what He doesn't do, I trust Him more than I trust myself.

That's the language of submissive faith. I believe in God more than I believe in me. That's the mark of great faith. You see, when we become Christians, we can so easily say sometimes, oh, I believe in God and I trust God.

But so often in practice, isn't it true? In our own lives, we trust ourselves more than God. But this woman says, Shalom. It shall be well. The God of Elisha will take care of me as I travel 15 miles to and fro.

He'll take care of my son. He'll take care of everything, husband. Don't worry. Our God lives. The God of Elijah lives. She went out. And so she travels. She settles in Ash. She says to her servant, Drive and go forward.

She uses the means, you see. Slot not thy writing for me except I did thee. So she went and came unto the man of God to Carmel. Do you use the means and trust God as you use them that He will make everything well in your future?

Think about what you worry about most right now. In the future. Something that hasn't happened but may happen. Can you say, It shall be well. My expectation is in the Prince of Peace, in the Lord Jesus Christ, He is our Shalom.

And my trust is in Him. It's not just in the thing. It's in a person. It's in an Almighty Person. And so that Shalom is a certain Shalom. It shall be well. That may be. Not 90%. God is faithful. It shall be well.

“It Is Well”: Submission in the Present

Well, Elisha sees her a long way off. And he sends Gehazi. He says, run and meet the Shunammite. And say unto her, Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child? She answers, It is.

It is. Now it's great faith to believe that God is going to raise her son from the dead and it shall be well. But I submit to you this morning that I believe it is greater faith to say, it is. This is the heart of submission in the midst of faith.

It is well. I want to grapple with you for a few moments about this whole question of submission. What really is submission? When we look back at our past, we have to ask the question, what does it mean to submit to God's ways with me?

With you? Under the second thought, I want to suggest to you that true submission involves four things. Four steps, if you will. I believe that they go deeper as we go along. The first thing about true submission is that true submission, and I'll show you first in these four steps what it is, and then I'll show you what it is not, because there's misconceptions about that as well.

Submission Acknowledges the Lord’s Hand in Affliction

The first step is that true submission acknowledges that all my afflictions are from the Lord. That's the first step. It is the Lord. 9 -11 -01. Lots of TV interviews after 9 -11, of course. John MacArthur was on an interview at a TV station.

Maybe some of you got the transcripts with four other ministers or rabbis or whoever they were. Larry King asked the question, was God's hand in this? Four of them basically said, no, God couldn't have anything to do with this.

My friend, I say to you this morning, if God has nothing to do with your affliction, you have no refuge in God in dealing with your afflictions. You've got no answer. You've got nothing more than the stoic.

The very best thing you can do then is grin and bear it and hope that somehow you may get back under the control of God who seems to have no control over you and over your happenings. If God's hand isn't in your affliction directing your afflictions, you have an impotent God.

You have a God who can save you. You have a God who can deliver you. There's no comfort in that at all. So the very first thing you should say when affliction comes in your life, you should say, it is the Lord.

Lord, what art thou saying to me? That's the first step of submission. Submission bows toward the Lord. It's not like those 400 with their lanterns and torches trying to capture Jesus in Gethsemane. He comes out and says, I am He.

And they fall backward against Jesus. But when we submit, you see, the direction of our life is toward the Lord. We turn to Him. We want His will. We want His guidance. We say right away, it is the Lord.

Obviously, this woman realized it. Otherwise, she wouldn't have gone straight to the prophet. She knew it was the Lord. The same God who gave is the God who has taken away. It is the Lord. Second step of true submission is to justify the Lord in all that He does.

Justifying God’s Ways and Receiving His Providences

It's one thing to say it is the Lord. It's another thing to say it is right. I deserve it. I deserve worse. To justify God in all His doings is an important part of true submission, of true faith. What did Aaron say when God took away his sons?

Nothing. He held his peace. But in that holding of his peace, there's the language, isn't there? It's not just a stoic hardness, but the language of submission. It is righteous. When Eli's sons were taken from him, Eli said, it is the Lord.

Let Him do what seemeth Him good. It is right. When David was taken from his throne by his own son, he said, behold, here am I. Let Him do to me as seemeth good unto Him. And when Job lost all ten children at once, imagine that!

All ten! He didn't say, Lord, couldn't you just have kept me one? He said, the Lord has given. The Lord has taken away. God is right. We always deserve worse. One time in my ministry, I was being very falsely accused of some horrible things.

And there wasn't a speck of truth in them. It was spread throughout the churches. It was dreadful. And I was bitter. And I didn't take it to the Lord as I should. But finally it broke me. And I went into my study and I just cried to the Lord.

Lord, have mercy. I began to see who I was and how much wrong I had done in my life. And how I deserved much worse. I went over to a shelf. I picked out a book and I opened it up. The man said in the book, after I read a page or two, he said, perhaps some of you are going through very difficult times because you're falsely accused and people are saying lies about you and none of it is true.

I was just astonished. How can it be? Oh, the man said, thank the Lord, because you deserve a lot worse than the rumors are. And besides, if the person who's spreading the rumors about you knew who you truly are inside, well, they'd have a lot more to talk about than they're talking about now.

See, we're a lot worse than we ever get. God is always better to you and to me than we are to Him. He's always better than we deserve. I remember when I was 12 years old, something rather miserable happened in our family and I was complaining and groaning and grunting like a 12 year old can to my mother.

And she just kept saying, well, it could be worse. It could be worse. She'd been saying that for years. It could be worse. Everything could be worse. Finally, I got very upset with her and I said, you know, you can say that about anything.

It could be worse. She said, that's right, son. Because we deserve hell. And anything above death and hell is the mercy of God. It could always be worse. You see, when I see who I am and what I deserve, I have no reason to complain.

Ever. I have a theological student who oh, he's in his upper 20's. He's been praying for a lovely wife for years. He's read all the marriage books on the market. He's prepared for it. He feels the Lord is guiding him.

Finally, he feels the Lord is leading him to court a particular young lady. He comes to me. He asks her opinion. Goes to the father. It's okay with the father. Everything's in order. All his ducks are in a row.

He comes and talks to me about two, three times. His heart is set on this girl. I pray with him. He prays with me about it. I'm cloud nine. She's a wonderful girl. She's a God-fearing girl. Wonderful spirit about her.

She's a gem. He's so happy. The last three weeks. One day, someone comes to me and says, did you hear about so-and-so? I said, no, what? It's all off. Oh, I said, naming our seminary student. He must be heartbroken.

You better talk to him. So next time he came in, I said, come to my study a moment, my friend. Shut the door. I said, it's tough, isn't it? Oh, he said, the Lord showed me as a lost sinner that a child of the king ought never to complain.

I'm well, Pastor. Because I did deserve her anyway. Look what he does to me. Always better than I deserve. But submission goes deeper. There is a third step. A third step. True submission approves of the Lord.

Approving the Lord’s Dealings Through Affliction

You see, there's one thing to say it is the Lord. Another to say it is right. And another to say it is well. Job didn't just say it is right. He didn't just say the Lord has given. The Lord has taken away.

He also said, didn't he? Blessed be the name of the Lord. That's the astonishing thing. To be a lost sinner before God, that's a miracle already. To see who I am and to acknowledge it. But to approve of it, to amen the ways of God with me when they are against me or seem to be against me.

That goes far, far deeper. Blessed be the name of the Lord. How is it with your child? It is well. I submit. I approve of God's ways. What an amazing thing this is. And sometimes as a pastor, you are amazed at the people that don't have this who have been long on the way.

And you are amazed sometimes at the people of God who do have this when they are even only a little while on the way. I don't know if the other pastors can identify with that, but it has amazed me. Not so long ago, I had a woman in my church who just received word that she got cancer.

Pretty dangerous kind of cancer. Didn't look very good. So I went to see her, of course, right away. And when you serve a fairly large church, there are times when pastoring can just overwhelm you. Particularly in such cases.

At that particular time, we had five different people in the church with cancer. And there were times in that period where there were 16, 17 people in the hospital at the same time. And so I stood out in the hallway and I knew before I went in the room that I was about to enter into a situation in which I would have to invest many an hour, many a prayer.

I can't explain it to you. The pastors know, but when you go through someone with cancer over months and years, you go on a rollercoaster ride, don't you? And there's emotion and there's tears and there's prayers.

There's closeness to the person. That's wonderful. But there's so much energy emanating from a pastor in such a case. And I was overwhelmed. And I stood out in the hallway and I just said, Lord, help me to become fully engaged in my mind and soul and to deny myself as I enter this room and to throw myself into this case once more.

And I enter the room and I'll never forget what I heard. How are you, Pastor? How am I? How are you, my friend? How are you? Having a rough time? Oh, no, Pastor. Really special. Cancer. Special. Special?

Yes, special. Why special? Well, you see, Pastor, God is dealing with me. And that's good news, isn't it? Because I've got such a wayward heart. And besides, now that I have cancer, my family is going to come and see me and other friends as well.

And I have an opportunity to tell them and show them how wonderful God is. And didn't you tell us, Pastor, that God makes no mistakes and all things work together for good? So this cancer He's going to use, isn't He?

Pastor, one more thing. I want to be His disciple. This is a babe in grace talking. She was only converted two years before that. I want to be His disciple. And to be His disciple, I have to be disciplined, don't I?

And to be disciplined with my hard heart, I need affliction. And so this is God's gift to me. It is well with my soul. And she said, now don't you go around worrying about me. God's going to take care of me.

I'm well. At first I thought, when I left the room the first time, well, that's a wonderful beginning, but I know enough about pastoring to know that two months later there might be a different language when the pain is great and the morphine is high and the chemo is repetitive.

But you know that woman went through that whole bout with cancer, speaking this way the whole time. I never met her not thanking God for having cancer. It is well. If every person in this audience today who's a true Christian would respond this way to affliction, what difference would it make in Wales and in your churches?

Would God use it to bring revival? Would God use it to bless and saturate the churches with the reality of Christianity? Oh, how we need submissive faith. But there's yet one more step. The fourth step of submission is cleaving to the Lord.

Cleaving to the Lord as Our Greatest Friend

Cleaving to Him as my greatest friend when He seems to come out against me as my greatest enemy. You ever seen a man with a very faithful dog? The man can tease the dog and throw a stone at him or a stick at him.

Dog runs and gets it and brings it back to him. If you are truly submissive, you will take God's sticks and stones and you will bring them back to Him and you will cling to Him and you will cleave to Him.

You will treat Him as your greatest friend no matter what He does to you. Job reached that point too, didn't he? At least at certain points in his suffering. Sometimes he wandered away. Sometimes faith grew weak.

But there was a time where he said, though He slay me yet will I trust in Him. One of my dearest saints in my church is dying these very days. I expect a phone call any day. This woman has been in the hospital more than 100 times in the last 15 years.

And she too is a remarkable example. God applied the words to her soul. My times are in Thy hand. And she asked me long ago already to do that at her funeral. Speak on those words. My times are in Thy hand.