Elisha’s Ministry - What Is God Doing? The Promised Son Restored Series

ELISHA’S MINISTRY - WHAT IS GOD DOING? THE PROMISED SON RESTORED

SERIES – MESSAGES ON ELISHA – HIS LIFE AND MINISTRY Number 11

MESSAGE IN ELISHA 2KINGS 4 v 18-37

This story concerns the son that God gave to the Shunammite woman - you remember, the woman Elisha stayed with in his journeys, who had made provision for him in an upper chamber, and to whom God had miraculously given a son. Well, in the course of time, that son became ill in the grain harvest and died. How old was he? There are three words used for this boy – son, child, lad in the NASB, and three in the NIV – child, son and boy. He had not fully grown up, for he was still a "child", but grown to be a boy, and most say between 4 and 7 years old, but I think he was older. Just putting this in context, the first verse of this account follows right after the Lord intervened to give a son at the end of chapter 4 verse 17.

Elisha would have continued his circuit of visitation and would have rested at the woman’s house, but he was not in that region when the boy was taken ill. Let us now look into the account.

2Kings 4 v 18 [[When the child was grown, the day came that he went out to his father to the reapers, 2Kings 4:19 and he said to his father, “My head, my head,” and he said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” 2Kings 4:20 When he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her lap until noon, and then died.]]

What tragedy had struck there that day. The promised son had died. I have never known the utter despair of losing a child, let alone, an only child, and in this case a son who was to be heir, and the son of a miracle at that. When a child dies, it is accompanied by all sorts of questions, the foremost of which is, “Why did God allow this to happen?” In these tragedies, where we try to find meaning in loss, we automatically turn beyond ourselves to someone greater, and it is often from God people want an answer. The constant human questions – “Why did God not prevent that? Why did God take my wife? Why did God not stop that accident? Why did God not kill Hitler or Mao Tse Tung? Why did God not eliminate Lucifer when he fell from heaven? Indeed, why did He create Lucifer in the first place, when He knew he would become Satan?” Don’t you ever ask me those questions because I can’t help you with a definite/exact answer. No human being can.

There are rivers too deep for us, and chasms too wide for us. There are mysteries we can not answer, for the answer is God’s choosing and is His domain. His thoughts are way above our thoughts and His plans are too deep for us. We know in part only. God has given us the roadmap for the future in His Son who is THE Way and the Truth and the Life. We may not know the future and even the day, but we know who holds the future and controls the day. In times that defy explanation, that is when our focus must come off the event and be placed on the Person.

“Why is God allowing me to suffer?” “Why does God not remove this pain and unhappiness in my life?” I believe He is doing this for His greater glory. I can not explain how, but I only know WHO. Tragedy strikes Christians as well as non-Christians for we are all children of Adam and subject to the problems of the human race. Tragedy and trauma can come to us, even unexpectedly, but it does not mean God has abandoned us, or is unhappy with us. Consider the life of Paul and the problems that beset him on every hand. We must never forget that God is faithful, and His resources are gracious to us, even when we don’t deserve them, or we don’t understand even our situation.

There is a verse that is quite meaningful here. Philippians 3 v 10 [[that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERINGS, being conformed to His death.]] When in fellowship with Christ’s sufferings, then you understand yours better. Like in everything, and every secret in the Christian life, it is “that I might know Him”. The better you know the Lord, the greater your understanding of life. It is such a tragedy when people walk away from God when tragedy or hard times occur. It is like these people are “fairweather Christians”. God does not want jelly babies. I will let James have the final word here - James 1 v 2 [[Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, James 1:3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, James 1:4 and let endurance have its perfect result that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.]]