Today's scripture reading will be from 2 Kings chapter 4 verses 38 through 44 and then also chapter 6 verses 1 through 7. So 2 Kings chapter 4 verse 38. And Elisha returned to Gilgal, and there was a famine in the land. Now the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, and he said to his servant, put on the large pot and boil stew for the sons of the prophets. So one went out into the field to gather herbs and found a wild vine and gathered from it a lap full of wild gourds and came and sliced them into the pot of stew, though they did not know what they were. Then they served it to the men to eat. Now it happened as they were eating the stew that they cried out and said, man of God, there is death in the pot and they could not eat it. So he said, bring some flour. And he put it into the pot and said, serve it to the people that they may eat. And there was nothing harmful in the pot. Then a man came from Baal-selishah and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley bread, and newly ripened grain in his knapsack. And he said, Give it to the people that they may eat. But his servant said, What, shall I set this before one hundred men? He said again, Give it to the people, that they may eat. For thus says the Lord, They shall eat, and have some left over. So he set it before them, and they ate, and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord. Chapter six, verse one. And the sons of the prophet said to Elisha, see now, the place where we dwell with you is too small for us. Please let us go to the Jordan and let every man take a beam from there and let us make there a place where we may dwell. So he answered, go. Then one said, please consent to go with your servants. And he answered, I will go. So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron axe head fell into the water. And he cried out and said, alas, master, for it was borrowed. So the man of God said, where did it fall? And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick and threw it in there, and he made the iron float. Therefore, he said, pick it up for yourself. So he reached out his hand and took it." The Word of the Lord. Let's bow in prayer, shall we? Our Heavenly Father, as we join together around the Word of God, It is with a sense of expectation, not in any sense because of the speaker, but entirely because of the content and power of your sacred scripture. Father, you've searched us and you know us. When we sit down, when we rise up, you perceive our thoughts from afar. and you discern our every intent and motive of the heart. And so, Lord, as we are preparing to not only declare but also to receive the Holy Scripture before us, we ask that you, Father, would form this truth not only on the lips but in the inward parts of us that as we hear it, Father, you would cause our hearts and minds to be drawn to your truth with a new fervor, a new desire, with a depth of application that can be done only by your Holy Spirit. Father, we recognize that our thoughts are not your thoughts, and yet you, Father, have told us in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 That, Father, no one knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man within him. And you say, no one knows your thoughts except your spirit. But, Father, that you send your Holy Spirit to teach us, to form in us your nature, to cause us, Father, to repent and to grow in grace. And so we pray that as your word is expounded, Father, that you would cause us to know something of what it is for Jesus Christ to proclaim his own name in our midst by the Spirit of Christ. As his sheep, we pray that we would hear the Master's voice and follow. And Father, as we listen and pray, that we would sit under the ministry of your infallible scripture, fellowship together with you in your presence. And that, Father, by this we would seek to encourage one another too. That we, Father, may pray together and form this fellowship together in this Sacrament of the Supper this day as well. That we, Father, may manifest the preeminence of Jesus Christ in all that is done. As John the Baptist said, Father, we must decrease, but he must increase. May you cause it to be so, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the title of the sermon this morning is From Famine to Abundant Waters. I've backtracked to take up the, as you recall, from last week, so that I could pick up this portion of the famine and join it to their moving to the Jordan, because it will be followed up shortly by something pertaining to the famine afterwards. So the timing is what I'm thinking of. So forgive me if you say, why did you do it out of time? Ask me afterwards, and I'll explain it more thoroughly. the truth of these things as they go together, I pray God would cause them to blend into our thinking, but more importantly, into our lives. And so first of all, here in chapter four, we see the purifying of the poison pot. the purifying of the poison pot. Well, it begins here with a famine in Gilgal. You remember, you all know where Gilgal is, don't you? Perhaps not. If you were to look at a map of Israel and you You know Galilee's in the north, and the Dead Sea's in the southern portion, and there by the Dead Sea, as you're looking at it, just in the above, there's Jericho up here at the northwest corner. Right above Jericho, about six miles or so, is Gilgal. Just over another seven miles, maybe six, is the River Jordan. So, they're not moving that far, but it's far enough. The problem is there's no water in Gilgal for them anymore. And so there's famine in the land. And so as you're thinking from this flow of the text. Remember before this there was the, this text here in chapter 4, there was the return of Elisha from down from the northern part to Gilgal. He came here right after resurrecting the Shunammite woman's son from the dead. Remember he had had a sunstroke or something. And remember, there was a widow's son of the prophets. Remember, she had said, look, they're going to take away my husband's dead. He's one of the son of the prophets. They're going to take away my sons and enslave them because I owe the debt. And remember, he had performed the miracle there of causing from this one small vessel of oil to fill all these large vessels with oil and to sell it to provide for her and her family. And now he's back, back in Gilgal and Elisha's servants are in amidst a famine. So he's arrived at another crisis time, is my point. Now, as you think of this, what are they doing? But he says, put on the pot and we'll make a pot of stew. And the problem is there wasn't a lot of food to go around. So as the person went out to pick herbs and finds this wild vine, you know, you could say, why in the world would they take something from a wild vine, cut it up, and put it in the stew? Because they were desperately in need of food. Famine. You know, famine isn't that we've run out of coffee, you know, like we might, some of us might think that's a terrible famine. But real famine is when people are desperately, the weather was horrible, it was dry, no rain, and therefore they were in desperate need of food. So this is why they did it. And of course, as you read in the account, there was the problem of the gourds were evidently had something somewhat poisonous about them at least. And that's why they cry out, there's death in the pot. So the solution was, Elisha says, put some flour in it, and it'll be fine. Take it and eat it. Question, which one of you would have been the first one after the flour to take that bite? Be honest. I'm not wanting an outward answer, but think about it. That takes faith, doesn't it? I mean, that's all you did, and that's going to keep me from dying from poisoning. Well, let's back up a bit and say, okay, first of all, let's deal with the idea of a famine. You remember that when God, in Deuteronomy 32, as God was leading, 28 to 32, as he's leading the Israelites into the promised land out of the desert, remember, he warned them to be no other gods. Do not stray and apostatize after idols, Baal and Asherah, and who have they had up in Israel that they've been worshiping? These idols. Baal, Asherah, they had other false gods. And remember the false practices. And so as you look at this, God's covenant chastisement. He said, if you do these things, one of the things I'm gonna do, I'm gonna shut up the heavens like bronze. In 2 Chronicles, many of you know this text by heart, but in 2 Chronicles chapter 7, remember the Lord says it there, when the temple was built, And he warned them, and he said this, he gave them this warning, 2 Chronicles 7 verses 13 and 14. When I shut up heaven and there's no rain or command to locusts to devour the land or send pestilence among my people, three things, right? When I shut up heaven and there is no rain or command locusts to do that, notice who's making it happen, God, God of creation. as a chastisement against them, to lead them unto repentance, to lead them unto turning from these false ways and false gods. It says, if my people, verse 14, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land. What does that mean? I'll send rain. I'll get rid of the locusts. No more pestilence. And so anyway, here you have famine, that if God is doing as he said he would do, if they stray, he sent the famine. Israel's national sin. Remember, these are the ten tribes in the north. Judah is the southern portion remaining faithful with the temple and whatnot. But you, at least off and on. But here you've got the false gods that we've already spoken of, but you also have the leaders. Remember we've got, we've had in the past some of the ones like Jeroboam, son of Nebat, or we've got, remember we have not only Ahab, but we had Ahab's father, and Ahab's wife, Jezebel. So we have all of these godless are false god-worshipping leaders, they're tyrants, they're control and injustice is what they're about. Remember there was the idea of Ahab, you know, taking a man's property, Jezebel having the men falsely accused and killed, all of these things that occurred. God's judgment, God's chastisement came on the heels of that. The goddess of sexual immorality, Asherah, And all of the affairs are going on. The god or idol, a molech of infanticide and baal, offering children to a god. So the murdering of infants and the immorality that was taking place in the land. And then furthermore, they were the haters and oppressors and persecutors of God's people. God's truth they hated, God's practices they hated. That's why these sons of the prophets were often in hiding. because the leaders of that nation hated them and therefore God brought judgment against them. And so the second thing was, Elisha and his relationship to the sons of the prophets. What were the sons of the prophets for? Prophets, what are they for? Not just to tell the future, they're there to speak out forthright. to correct, and to rebuke, and to call to repentance, and to call to faith, and to lead the people in the learning of the scriptures, and to form these groups where they burn the idols, tear down the high places, and that sort of thing. Prophets. And so Elisha with these men, they spoke out against sin, the sins of Israel. By the way, they weren't speaking out about tolerance and diversity and inclusion, were they, of false gods? I was listening to a thing that this, at least one, faithful minister in the Anglican Church in England And he was speaking out against the LGBTQ, whatever else is in the alphabet that's included there nowadays, all of this stuff that their practices, that all of the hierarchy of the Anglican Church is advancing in and rejoicing in and saying it's blessed. And he said, you're sanctifying sodomy. Here's this one man, a young man, who's speaking out against this. to those who are in the churches. Beloved, in our country, in our day, in our place that God has set each one of us are not the same sins that we're talking about here in this text, alive and bad. Now, too, indeed they are. And so to pray and actively counter this was the sin, the darkness that was everywhere. That's what God had formed these, kept these sons of the prophets for. God called them. God is the one who led them there. God is the one who put upon Elisha's heart to lead them and to instruct them and prepare them. A voice of witness in the wilderness. And so, remind ourselves of a Christian worldview. What is a Christian worldview? It's where every aspect of our lives is formed, are conformed to the truth of God's Word. And so it's not that Christianity is this little compartment over here that I pull out on Sunday mornings and put back for the rest of the time. It's not that something, it doesn't form my morality, or it doesn't affect my ethics, it doesn't affect my behavior, or it doesn't affect my speech patterns, or it doesn't affect my priorities, or my family, or on and on and on you could go. Wrong. A Christian worldview is that where we seek to apply and conform all of our lives and everything that we can be involved for in for the glory of God and for righteousness sake. A Christian worldview. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what aspect of the society we're talking about. As God would give us opportunity in everything that we do, may God grant us wisdom, courage to speak out and to sanctify all to him in his glory. Did you notice something else? Here they are in this famine, and you say, well, these are good and godly people. These are saints. Why are they suffering? Well, you know, in the Bible, at least I've heard it recently, in recent years, in fact, since I was a little kid, Christians aren't supposed to suffer. I mean, God's going to come and pluck you out before there's any real suffering, right? Wrong. And you see these dear saints who are suffering the effects of this famine that's for the chastisement of those who are not godly. But you see, God looks not just at us as a bunch of lone rangers, a lot of individuals. He does look at us as a nation or looks at us as a church. There is a corporate nature that's involved. And so the ministry of these suffering saints was to others who are suffering the famine for the glory of God. God works that way a lot. I remember reading about a reformed minister in England during the time of the plague. And he was going back, and you know, a lot of those, like the priests and the like, they were fleeing for the country. They were getting away from the plague. No, no, I'm getting away from that. I don't want to get it. And this man was going into London, where the plague was rife. I said, what are you doing? He said, what am I but a dying man preaching to dying men? You see, beloved, the priorities in his heart and mind were right. The suffering was not to stop him. It was he, with these dear people, to preach the gospel to him. By the way, he lived. God preserved him. There's no guarantee that'll happen, by the way. But here you have the school of the prophets was also a school of faith. We, too, have to trust God to take us through the famine, not just everybody else. We, too, have to trust God to provide for us. And they did. And to do faith, not fear. And so we see that God's strength Remember what Paul said, you know, God's strength, he's talking about God's strength, of course, he says, his strength is made perfect in weakness. Whose weakness? Paul's. Well, also ours. It's during this time of suffering, you see, that God's strength is put on display, that he's the one who sustains us. He's the one who carries us through. And so as we look back to the story there, the wild gourds that were put in there, The people were sickened. There's death in the stew. They call out for Elisha, of course. Yes, they did. Because they knew, what did they call him? Man of God. Why do they call him man of God? Because the word of the Lord came through him. This is the one, these are where the scriptures came from, beloved. From the apostles and prophets. Christ Jesus, the cornerstone. And so you see, these are they that we hearken unto. It's the same thing today. We are listening to Elisha today, are we not? Right here in the Holy Scripture. He speaks no less powerfully now than he did then. And so the prophet's word, that's what the antidote to the poison was. And he says, spread the flour in the pot. Now, by the way, as I half jokingly said, who would like to be first to try it after that? Let's put now a more serious point on it. Eating that afterwards, would be an act of faith, would it not? And it would be an act of thanksgiving. Be trusting. God said to his prophet, it's good. Enjoy and thank the Lord for it. But we also see something else here, don't we? God's providential provision. The timing was perfect. You read here in chapter four where you see in verses 42 to 44, you've got this arrival of a man suddenly that's bringing the first fruits. Now this wasn't arranged by anyone but God. This man didn't have his signals, communication. He called Elisha, could you use any food, Elisha? Sure, bring it on over. It wasn't that way, was it? God just, by his providence, led this man to bring his first fruits and to give it to this school of the prophets. And he gave these 20 loaves of barley bread. That's the most simple bread, by the way, not the refined stuff. And he gave him this knapsack full of ripe grain. And here the servant says, now what is this among a hundred men? Now don't forget they had their families with them, lots of them. And he says, you give them that and there'll be some left over. Ringing a bell in the New Testament? It is. But let's think a moment about this. God purifying the pot. Let me back up to that for a moment. God's the one who can remove the poison that is the most deadly. You know, the scripture talks about leaven, for example, in Matthew chapter 16, you know, Jesus talks about leaven, you know, and he talks about beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, you know, their poison. The poison that's most deadly is not a physical poison, but a spiritual one. We read in various places, like the book of Jude, for example, about half the book is describing these who are spots on your love feast, of these who are clouds without water, of these false teachers, false prophets, who are pouring into you those things which are murderous to the soul. We have in our society a flood of poison, of cults, of word-faith quote-unquote preachers, teachers, claiming they are gods and that you and I are gods, or others who are saying you're going to be gods, or others that have with false miracles are deceiving people and preaching, denying the deity of Christ, or preaching this tolerance of sin. This is how we show we're loving whom we tolerate people who are in this vile, blasphemous type of a relationship, if you call it that. No, that's not loving, that's hate. If you love them, you call them to Christ. If you love them, you call them to repentance, you see. And so anyway, God is the one who purifies and He draws the life that's sustained from God's Word and God's wisdom. Over in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18 and following, I'm not going to read it to you, there's no time. But it talks there about the wisdom of this world. And it says God has chosen the wisdom of this. It says the wisdom of this world and their wisdom, they crucified Christ and their wisdom. You know, they don't come to the truth, the everlasting truth. And it says that God is brought to not the wisdom of the world. How? Through the foolishness of preaching. You say foolishness? Well, to those who are perishing, it's foolishness. But to those of us whom God has done a work of grace in our hearts and our minds, he's written his law on our hearts and minds, indwells us by the spirit, sealed us to the day of redemption. Unto us, these are the words of life, not death. Remember Jesus in John 4, remember he was there talking to the woman at the well, and he tells her, and he says, go get your husband. And she says, I don't have a husband. And he tells her everything about herself. And she says, I've heard Messiah's coming. He says, I am he. And so his disciples had gone into Sikar, remember the town, to look for food. So she runs into the town, and they pass her by, and they see him talking to her, and they say, You need to eat, master. And he says, I have food you don't know anything about. And they said, did somebody bring him food? They didn't get it. And he said, to do the will of my father, that is my food, you see. And then what happens? This harvest of people comes under Christ. Oh, we can't develop that further. But remember Colossians 2, verse 8. Read the verses before and after. But it warns, there by the Apostle Paul, he warns and he says, do not let those people rob you by the philosophies of this world. Rob your soul of life and understanding. This providential provision and blessing. He said there will be plenty left over. Remember the Lord had demonstrated himself able in the here are one and a half million or however many people came out of Israel, out of Egypt rather, of Israel. And remember, he led them through the wilderness and he gave them manna six days a week. And he says, draw the double portion on, you know, the Friday, we'll carry you through the Sabbath and it'll keep. In all 40 years in the wilderness, he fed them from heaven until he brought them into the land. God can provide, all according to his word. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Looking to the Father for our daily bread, here are these people, certainly from hand to mouth daily, our daily bread. And he was faithful, wasn't he? God causes us to grow in grace when he causes us to recognize that we, whether we see it or not, we are absolutely dependent upon him to provide day by day until he calls us home. Well, the providential provision and blessing Let me just close this section quickly this way. I told you it's similar to something in the New Testament. You were all way ahead of me. I could see it in your eyes. In a wilderness place when Jesus was preaching and teaching 5,000 men, we don't know how many women and children. Certainly there were 10,000 there. Jesus has them all sit down. Remember the account. The disciples say, Lord, how are we going to feed them? They need to go buy food. And he says, no, no, we'll feed them. Right. Imagine the scene. And he says, well, Andrew, we've got one little boy here with five loaves and two fish. Little loaves, not big ones like these. Sit him down and he feeds. Remember how he did it. The one who is, remember how Jesus created things? It talks about it in the Bible, how he was the agent of creation, that God created, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the triune God created the heavens and the earth, by the way. You look at Genesis 1, you know, and you look at John 1 and compare the two, and you see that it is through Jesus Christ, the Son, through the agent of creation by the Spirit, the Father spoke and it was done. the one who created all things, through whom all things are created, and it also says in Colossians 1, for whom. He can feed us, and there's some left over, it says. And so everybody was satisfied and there was left over this, these two, five loaves and two fishes. Now put that little, let's put a little plate here in the mouth of a fillet plate, They collected the leftovers of 12 baskets full. God, the God who is able, but not able to enable me to have more time to do the other part that we read. But this is a good place to stop today. You know, here in this time of the Supper of the Lord, the Lord chose very common things to remind us of eternal things. And he causes us to worship Christ, the one who is the bread of heaven, the one who is the water of life. And so, beloved, as we've seen here, these first ones who, in a time of famine, were provided for by God. The ultimate provision is Jesus Christ. The words of life and salvation today. I was about to say, no less so now. Far more emphatic than that. as powerfully, as eternally, now as ever. And the Lord's, we're closer to the Lord's coming than when you walked in the door, you know that, right? So, uh, that should give us pause. We were listening in Sunday school and, uh, Eric, Derek, Dirk, sorry. I've known Derek and Eric and everybody else. Dirk was working on Psalm 90 and he was telling us a part about the part, you know, you, you go through the Psalm and it says, you know, teach us to number our days. that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Beloved, a heart of wisdom means that which recognizes the gravity of what we're facing and reacts in a way that is filled with faith, reacts in a way that is Christ-centered, reacts in such a way that we recognize for his kingdom and righteousness, that's why I breathe. That's why my heart beats. For him. Paul, as he's closing out his life, at least he thought he was, he was writing in Ephesians 3 to the church at Ephesus. And he says, as he's speaking to them, he says, I, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, for your sake. So in other words, it was for him, for them. And by the way, you got the rest of it. by implication, for life. When you come to the end of your life, and this is one of the points that Dirk was making, when you come to the end of your life, I'm going to put it in my words, forgive me if it's not exactly what you said, and we come to say, what was my life for? What was the purpose? Why did I walk and live and breathe and do everything that I did? Well, if it's not like Paul said in his epistle, for me to live is Christ, then it's vain. Ah, but if it's to live for Christ. Never mind the measuring sticks of the world, and the flesh, and the devil. They measure by other things that are self-gratifying, self-glorifying, and self-serving. But you see, the purpose here, you see in these sons of the prophets and their families, you see it in Elisha, you see it in everyone that God would point us to in his word. And it's there not just to give us our historical record, although it is for that, but it's also to say, you and me are in this picture as well. May we recognize that our purpose and is the same as would be declared here. And the time is to be redeemed for the Redeemer. May God grant us the grace for it. Amen. Let's pray together. Our Father, You tell us, at least in the book of Amos chapter 8, You say, The days are coming, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land. But not a famine of bread, nor of thirst of water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from north even to the east, and they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. Father, what a horror that would be to have only silence. You have given us all 66 books of the Bible. And your Holy Spirit who speaks through that word today You minister in our midst today. We have the liberty at the moment to gather together and worship you today. Father, may we cherish, treasure, learn from, and become equipped by all of these moments that it might be for you, for them, for life. You tell us, Father, You've shown us what is good. And what do You require of us, Father, but to do justly and to love mercy and grace and to walk humbly before You, our God? In the name of Christ, Father, may today be a time when You do a powerful work in our hearts and minds to cause focus where once there was everything out of focus. And give us zeal and a love for You that burns in our bosom. Make Your Word be alive in our lives, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Now receive the benediction of the Lord. And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.