Raise your hand if you've ever sprayed your brother or sister in the face with a garden hose. All right, that has nothing to do with the lesson. I just wanted to ask you if you had, okay? Well, I remember when I was in high school, and it was my first year of basketball practice. Boys and girls, raise your hand if you ever played basketball. Right? OK, good. All right. Well, I'll tell you what, it wasn't like junior high basketball. That was child's play. But when we got to the big leagues, at least that's what I thought it was in high school, that coach was like a taskmaster. You know what he did? First off, it was hot, even though it was early fall, because the Central Valley in California, that's another story. But we got in that gymnasium, and he told us to get on the line, and I didn't know what that mean, get on the line. Do you know what that means, boys and girls, to get on the line? That means get on the baseline, on the court, and we were going to run lines. Now lines is the abomination of desolation for every mankind because what it means is you go from the baseline to the free throw line and then back and then all the way to the half court line and then back and then all the way to the free throw line on the other side of the court and then back and then all the way to the other side of the court and then back and then you throw up and pass out. Now, as if one time weren't enough, he said, get back on it. And we did it, boys and girls, 10 times. I thought I was gonna pass out. But finally, after the fifth time, I thought, okay, he's gonna give us a water break. I mean, there's gotta be some child protection law somewhere that doesn't permit a coach to be able to make kids suffer this much, but he didn't care, even if there were one. But after the 10th set of lines, okay, when I could barely think and my heart is throbbing out of my chest, he finally said, go hit the water fountains. And we did. And it was a mad dash and everybody was running, they were elbowing each other, trying to trip each other, trying to get to that water fountain first. And the moment that water hit my lips, it was heavenly. Because what did it do? It quenched my thirst. Now let me ask you a question. Even after 10 sets of lines, would you drink that water if it was poisoned? No, that'd be a bad idea. No way, Jose. So, tonight, we're talking about a miracle where Elisha was dealing with that very problem. Poisoned water! Contaminated water! It was contaminated water in Jericho, and you must understand that if the water is contaminated, that's no small problem. Because water runs through everything. You say, we'll all just drink Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid is made out of water. We'll all just make some macaroni and cheese. You've got to boil it with water. See where I'm going here? Everything involves water. You need to feed your dog water. Well, give it water to drink, okay? So everything involves water. And what if the main water source were contaminated and defiled? Well, that would mean that life itself would be in jeopardy, right? And that's exactly what happened. And these people came to him and said, look, the water is contaminated. We don't even know what happened. In fact, we actually do, I'll tell you in a minute. But we don't know what happened. But what that means is that the land would be fruitful and that the livestock would miscarry and more than likely the women would miscarry too. And so what does the scripture say that Elijah does? Kind of mysterious. He says, give me a new bowl, because apparently an old bowl wouldn't have worked. Give me a new bowl and salt. And then what did he do? He went to the spring of water and he threw salt in it and said, Thus says the Lord, I have healed this water. From now on, neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it. So the water has been healed to this day. Now that's a very cool story. And boys and girls, it's a true story. It really happened. It's history. But now that I've told the story, I want to ask another question, okay? Because as I prayed just a few moments ago, we believe that everything in Scripture in some way, shape, or form leads us to the face of Jesus Christ. Now, if you don't believe that, I just want to justify that by what Jesus did with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They were uncertain as to whether He was Jesus. They were uncertain as to whether Jesus was truly the Messiah. And so as they're walking to Emmaus, not knowing that this was Jesus, what does Jesus do with their doubting minds and their doubting hearts, beginning with Moses and the prophets and all the way through the rest of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible? He shows them where it spoke of Him. In our Calvinistic Circles even in our redemptive historical circles. I think we don't see Jesus enough in the Old Testament because the whole Old Testament is shot through With the nail prints of Jesus Christ it shot through with the works and the miracles and the grace and the love and the mercy and the compassion and the forgiveness and the miracle working wonders of Jesus Christ and I think That we can see something of that here So I want to ask, what is the spiritual lesson for us tonight of this text? Well, let me mention four quick things. Number one, I think this lesson teaches us that like the contaminated water source in Jericho, we too were cursed and contaminated. In fact, we were cursed to be contaminated. Now, we don't know immediately in the story where this contamination came from in Jericho. But if we dig back a little bit in the Old Testament, we find that after the children of Israel marched around Jericho and the walls came down, we know that Joshua swore an oath over Jericho that cursed it, cursed the man that would build it up again. And there was this lingering curse over Jericho that afflicted it moving forward. And this becomes very interesting because the author of 2 Kings wants us to make the connection that the lingering effects of the curse of Joshua, really from God through Joshua on Jericho, are now manifesting themselves. The water source is poisoned. It is contaminated. And just as that city is contaminated and cursed, so we as a people, as sons and daughters of Adam, are also cursed. How so? We're always craving more. We're always craving something new. We're always craving something that, if we are not careful, will take our passions away from Jesus Christ. And the thing is, is the very things that we crave, the very things that Satan puts before us in subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways to pacify our passions, just like this land actually made it unfruitful. it actually made it unfruitful. The curse makes us unfruitful just as this land was unfruitful because of the contamination of this water. But the second thing I want to say, that's the plight, that's the problem, is that another problem occurs. And that is, we don't see the problem of our curse because we look in different places at different things. You say, what do you mean by that? Well, it's very interesting what the text says in verse 19. It says, Behold, the situation of this city is pleasant as my Lord sees. Now, if you didn't read any further, you wouldn't see what the problem is. But the problem with cursed man, and the problem that I think we in this affluent country face, is that though we're a curse, we have ever so many blessings. Ever so many blessings. And in fact, I would dare say one of the fears I have for my children is that their life is too good. Their life is too good. We're reading in our family worship at night a biography on Saint Paisios from Mount Athos. And he had a rough childhood. He had a childhood where he experienced poverty. He had a childhood where he experienced war, where he had to flee as a refugee. Very, very difficult childhood. And yet his godliness is humbling, to be honest with you. Because at a time when they were in war, and at a time where war rations were being given out, and at a time where you couldn't go to Food Lion, you couldn't go to Costco, you couldn't go to stores in Greece at that time to get food. Families even poorer than theirs would come to them and they would give all their family heirlooms, as many as they had, just to get a handful of flour. And Saint Paisios and his family just gave it to them as they could. They needed it themselves, but they just gave it to them because they had hearts full of love for God's people. They had hearts full of love for mankind itself. St. Paisios was actually a worker of wood. And he was actually very good at it. And he made decent money to take care of his family, but he would, from time to time, make coffins for people who had died. And he would never charge the family, because it was his way of showing his condolences and expressing his grief and just wanting to care for them in their time of need. And I wonder sometimes, I wonder if, well, I don't wonder, let me put that another way, I know I know that the Lord oftentimes sends tragedy, sends sickness, sends calamity, sends misfortune, sends difficulty, sends all the kinds of things that no American wants so as to draw us closer to Him and help us to realize our dependence on Him more. And so if we're not looking at the right thing, we can just look at the pleasantness of our life, just like some who were visitors to Jericho probably looked at the pleasantness of the city, how well it was laid out. The city planners do a really good job. Everything was nice. There was no trash on the streets, but it was actually a cesspool of death. The longer you stayed there, the quicker you would find that out. And so also with man, our problem is our success. Our problem is our well-being. And the thing is, the problem about this problem is that it's also a blessing. Good things, success, health are blessings, but if we're not careful, they can be curses. But the third thing I want you to notice here is that in the New Covenant, Christ changes the source of all of our problems by giving us a new heart. And I want you to notice where Elisha went to solve the water problem. Boys and girls, he didn't just go to the side of the river and throw in salt. Where did he go? The text says He went to the source of the river. You see, if you're going to affect something, either for good or for ill, you have to go to the source. And isn't that why the Lord in the New Covenant, what does He promise the prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, that He would give the New Covenant community? He would take out our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. I don't think it's insignificant or irrelevant that it is a new bowl. I think the newness there is what we need to focus on, because God is going to do something new in the new covenant. Now on this side of the cross, it's something that is old for us, but new in the redemptive history of God. But I think what's also interesting is what Elisha used to throw into the river. What was it? Salt. Salt. What does salt do? It preserves. It preserves. And so the Lord takes out our heart of stone, He puts in a heart of flesh, He washes us with the water of the Word, He puts the Spirit of God within us, and then He preserves us all the way until the end. So in the New Testament, Christ changes the source of all of our problems by giving us a new heart. And a new heart is what we need because out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And as we heard this morning in Sunday school, all of the enacted sins that come in as thoughts and then images and then connect themselves to passions and then finally work themselves out as sins come out of our mouth. They come out of our hands, but they all emanate from the heart. So on the one hand, The Lord gives us a new heart, but on the other hand, we haven't gotten to a state of perfection with the heart. And so, we're still being cleansed, but our overall defiling has been healed. And this is what Jesus says to the apostles in John 20-22 after He blew on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. He said, now you are clean through the word which I have spoken to you. But even though our defilement, brothers and sisters, is taken away, I want to make a distinction here. Just as Elisha threw the salt in and it cleansed the water, but there were still, I'm sure, during storms and during certain events, contamination that came into the water. Elisha made it very clear. In verse 22 it says, the water has been healed to this day according to the word that Elisha spoke. In other words, overall it is pure. But in the same way that Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, and the question is, How is it that they were already clean and yet he had to wash their feet? That's the question that is asked in John 15. And the answer is, well, you are completely clean. In fact, he told Peter that very thing. But the reason Jesus washes our feet is because we still walk in a world of sinfulness and from time to time our feet still get dirty. That's the idea here, you see. is that we're still going to get contaminated from time to time. And so what is the goal? And that's the last thing that I want to say tonight. The goal of the Christian life is to become more and more controlled by the Spirit of God. And here, I want to go to John 7, 38 and 39, and I'll end with this tonight. John 7, 38 and 39. I love this. Let's start at verse 37. Chapter 7, verses 37-39. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." Now what's beautiful about this picture is that Jesus says, you believe in me, and living water will flow from your heart. And he's hearkening back to a prophecy that Ezekiel made in chapter 47. You don't need to go there. But chapter 47 is in case in chapters 40 through 48 where Ezekiel is talking about the future temple. And it's not a physical temple. What he's talking about, I think, from two different perspectives, is the church, the church in the now time, and the church in the Eschaton, okay? But he's using terms that he's familiar with to describe the people of God. We know from the New Testament that we are living stones. That's what Peter says. We know that Christ identified Himself as the temple of God, and by extension, by faith, we are in Christ, and so we are also the temple of God. But in chapter 47, it's very interesting. Because God has Ezekiel go to basically the threshold of the temple. And out of the threshold of the temple, this water starts coming up. And in the beginning, it's just trickling, right? And then as he goes so many cubits, it starts coming up to his ankles. And what's clear is that it's filling, it's filling, it's filling. He goes a little bit more, it starts coming up to his knees. He goes a little bit more, it starts coming up to his waist. He goes a little bit more, boys and girls, and it's all the way up to his chest. And there comes a point where he goes out and the water is so full that he's swimming in this water. And Jesus says right here, that that is talking about the Holy Spirit. Now, I want you to think about that for a second. That really is a beautiful picture of what the Christian life is meant to be. When you start as a Christian, you're not swimming in the Spirit. Right? You may think you are, but that's part of the proof that you're not swimming in the Spirit. You have a higher view of yourself than you are. All right? Going around telling people what to do with their life, it's awesome, right? Zealous Christians just getting saved. But we appreciate the zeal, and the older ones among us are here to steer you in the right direction, whether you like it or not. All right? But in the beginning, there's just a trickle, right? Just a trickle. But the idea of the Christian life is you want that source of the Spirit of God to grow fuller and fuller and fuller and deeper. And how do you do that? Continually denying your own passions, continually denying your own desires, saying no to yourself, fighting your thoughts, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And the more and more that you do this, the more you're being controlled by the Spirit. There's a simple diagnostic question that you could ask. Maybe you're in a fight with your wife, you're in a fight with your husband, fight with your kids, fight with the dog, whatever. It's just very good for you to ask the question, am I being led by the Spirit right now? That's a very good diagnostic question. I call it the Holy Spirit smelling salt, okay? Because if you're ripping into your kid because they did something menial, not a very big deal, you're just mad about something, or you're ripping into your wife, you're ripping into your husband, ripping into your poor dog, you're probably not being led by the Spirit. And sometimes we just need the smelling salt question to say, are you being led by the Spirit right now? But the idea is that the source has been healed. You are a new creation in Christ, and yet contaminants still remain. And what we need to do, just like that temple, is to have the influence of the Spirit move from a trickle up to our ankles, to our waist, to our chest, until we're swimming. Now, brothers and sisters, let me end with this, okay? We've heard this before, right? We've got to be filled with the Spirit. I know, you've got to be filled with the Spirit. But you know what? I want you this week, as you interact with Christians, I want you to pay special attention to people that you believe are more filled in the Spirit than you. And I'm going to tell you something, they're out there. And I know that some of you have met people like this. I'm talking about the salt of the earth people. They would rather die than slander or gossip about their brother or sister. They are bent on thinking about you first. They're not selfish, they're selfless. They want to serve, they want to love, they want to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, always making melody towards Christ in their hearts. And these types of people, I've met them. Going to seminary and different seminaries, been around a lot of high-caliber Christian people. And some scoundrels, but also some really high-caliber Christian people. People that come from 10, 12, 15 generations of Christians back. And these people, you could just tell, man, this is good stock, Christian. And I am bragging about them, that's what I'm bragging about, because those are the type of people, if you wanna learn what it means to move from a trickle to the waist, to the hip, to the chest, to swimming, look at their life. And does not the book of Hebrews tell us this? We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, saints. You are saints. There are saints surrounding us. Look at their life. See Christ in them and imitate that imitation of Christ in your own life. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank You that Elisha gives us a picture of what You have done in our life and what You are continuing to do. And O Spirit of God, we pray that You would continue to conform us more and more so into the image of Your Son, Jesus Christ. For it is in His name we pray. Amen. Let's stand tonight and sing Christ the sure and steady anchor.