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A Sermon by Dr. Bob Griffin, Teaching Elder at Sovereign Grace Church
I. HERE IS THE BAD NEWS
A. DEATH
>1. RESULTS
II Kg 6:24-25 Sometime after, Ben-hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went over to besiege Samaria. There was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a pint (¼ kab) of carob pods for five shekels of silver.
(also Lev 11:2-7; Deut 14:4-8)
>2. RESPONSE
II Kg 6:26 Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”
II Kg 6:27 And he said, “If YHWH will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?”
II Kg 6:28-29 And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.”
(also Deut 28:52-53)
>3. REACTION
II Kg 6:30-31 When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. He did this passing by on the wall and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body. He said, “May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today.”
B. DELIVERANCE
>1. REALIZATION
II Kg 6:32 Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Now the king had dispatched a man from his presence, but before the messenger arrived Elisha said to the elders, “Do you see how this murderer has sent to take off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door fast against him. Don’t you hear the King’s feet coming behind him?”
>2. RESPONSIBILITY
II Kg 6:33 While he was still speaking with the elders, the messenger reached him. The king said, “This trouble is from YHWH! Why should I wait for YHWH’s help any longer?”
>3. REVELATION
II Kg 7:1 But Elisha said, “Thus says YHWH: Tomorrow about this time a 1/3 bushel of fine flour or ½ bushel of barley shall be sold for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”
>4. RIDICULE
II Kg 7:2a Then the captain (the king’s right-hand man) said to the man of God, “If YHWH Himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?”
Elisha prophesied, “You’ll see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat of it.”
(also Eph 3:20; II Cor 12:9-10; Deut 32:36)
II. WAIT! THERE IS GOOD NEWS
A. DECISION
>1. REALITY
II Kg 7:3-4 Now there were four leprous men outside the city gate. They asked each other, “Why are we sitting here until we die? If we choose to enter the city, the famine is there and we will die. If we sit here, we also will die. Come on – let’s go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we’ll live, and if they kill us – well, we’re dead anyway.”
>2. RECOGNITION
II Kg 7:5-7 So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they reached the far edge of the Syrian camp, there was no one there. YHWH had made the Syrian army hear chariots and horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has allied with the Hittite king and Egyptian pharaoh for a surprise attack against us.”
So, they fled at twilight, abandoning their tents, horses, and donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, fleeing for their lives.
>3. REJOICING
II Kg 7:8 And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into one tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and did the same.
II Kg 7:9 Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, we will be punished. Therefore, let’s go and tell the king’s household.”
(also Ps 107:2)
B. DISBELIEF
>1. REPORT
II Kg 7:10 So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.”
(also I Pet 3:15)
>2. RECONNAISSANCE
II Kg 7:11-12 Then the gatekeepers shared the message with king’s household. The king rose in the dark and said to his servants, “I’ll tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we’re hungry. They have left the camp and in the open country, thinking, ‘When the Israelis leave the city, we’ll capture them and enter the city.'”
II Kg 7:13-14 One of his servants suggested, “Let some men take five of the remaining horses, seeing that those who are left here will fare like the whole multitude of Israel who have already died. Let us send and see.” So they took two horsemen, and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying, “Go and see.”
II Kg 7:15 So they went after them as far as the Jordan, and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipment that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. The messengers returned and told the king.
>3. RESULT
II Kg 7:16 Then the people poured out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So 1/3 bushel of fine flour or ½ bushel of barley sold for a shekel just as the prophecy of YHWH.
II Kg 7:17-20 Now the king had appointed the captain – the man who had mocked God saying that if YHWH Himself should make windows in heaven, could such a thing be? And that Elisha had said “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” – to create order at the gate. But the crowd trampled him to death in the gate.
(also Heb 3:16-19; Is 55:1; Rom 10:12-13)