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Floodgates Of Heaven Series
Contributed by Rev. Dr. Andrew B Natarajan on Jun 23, 2020 (message contributor)
Summary: God is almighty and Omnipotent. God would change everything in a fraction of seconds and within a twinkle of an eye. He is so powerful and God of miracles. Everything is possible for him. How amazing to see how God does miracles on every occasion of his children.
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Theme: Floodgates of Heaven
Text: 2 Kings 7:1-20
I greet you all in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We praise God the grace given to all of us to cope up with Locking and unlocking of our live streams for more than 96 days. By the grace of God, we participated 14 online Sunday Services and listened to the Word of God.
During June 2020 we had several devotions based on restoration. They are: Make us glad, Restoration of Fortunes, Lord restored the fortunes of Job, David recovered all, Compassionate Father restoring the Son, Restoration of Joy, Restoration of David Tent, and finally, we are ending with Floodgates of Heaven. If you missed any one of these series, kindly visit AMC YouTube Channel. If you have not subscribed, please do so for immediate updating.
This evening we are meditating under the theme: Floodgates of Heaven based on the text read to us. Though, this sentence was used by an unbelieving Officer of the King to express the inability of God. But we are going to see how God made it upside-down of his sentence by establishing the WORD of Elisha from three aspects, such as 1. Powers of Prophets, 2. Perils of Unbelievers, and 3. Proclamation of Preachers.
1. Powers of Prophets
Prophet Elisha was introduced as a man of great energy (1 Kings 19:19); he made a complete surrender to God and his trainer Prophet Elijah (1 King 19:20-21); he earned the double of power of Elijah by continuous struggle and follow up ( 2 Kings 2:9); he was a man of incorruptible integrity (2 Kings 4:9-10 & 5:16); and he always lived in the spirit of victory (2 kings 6:15) till his death.
As he was living in Samaria had experienced the same struggle the same problems of Israel, he was equally affected by the siege of the Syrians. He was equally sharing the burden of the people (2 Kings 6:32). Prophet Elisha was one of the Twin prophetic figures in Hebrew History. He never lost courage, never fled from enemies, never complained anything to YHWH. Despite his fiery predecessor, and his boss had all these issues. But Elisha never gave place for all these. Even in his deathbed, Elisha spoke with full power and declared the WORD of God.
King Joram also knew as Jehoram succeeded the family of Ahab and became a king of Israel (2 Kings 1:17 & 8:16). Joram had the counsel and blessings of Elisha about when the enemy will come, where he will come, and how to tackle the battle (2 Kings 6:8-10).
But now we do not know why God was silent about the sieges of Samaria by the Syrian army. So, the blame game started. King Joram first blamed Elisha then he blamed God the Lord for present situation (2 Kings 6:27,30). King Joram was so enraged and wanted to kill Elisha for three reasons:
a. Elisha did not foretell the invasion of the Syrian army as he used to do earlier (2 Kings 6:8-10 & 24),
b. Elisha did not allow King Joram to kill the Syrian army when they brought to his palace blindfolded (2 Kings 6:22-23),
c. He is not getting any revelation from God about the end of the Famine (2 Kings 6:30-31)
So, King Joram sent a captain who is very reliable to him. Since Elisha was a powerful man of God, He received the revelation immediately. Elisha Prophesised an event to happen on the morrow, he told them about the sale of essential commodities to a cheaper rate. It would be almost a resurgence of the economy of Samaria, an immediate crash of the stock market of Samaria which is supposedly beyond hope and reality to the King and his officers.
As of now, people are dying of starvation and eating their flesh; I mean their children. How is it possible for this small country? They do not have enough soldiers to battle, not enough chariots to run. The conditions are life-threatening and leading to great destruction. So, humanly speaking nothing would change their scenario.
But Elisha said: Hear the Word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says: About this time tomorrow…(2 Kings 7:1) The man of God came with a fantastic prophecy of prosperity and plenty. He told very coolly to the King messenger that they will see a great miracle of the harvest of blessings. It would be a complete turn of the clock; within twenty-four hours, there would be an entirely different world for Samaria those who would believe and alive will experience it.
Elisha affirmed that it was Word of God, not predictions, not probabilities, not maybe, not there seems to be but surely. However, an officer closed to King expressed incredulity with a sarcastic comment that even the Lord opens the floodgates of the heavens, it would not happen. So Elisha warned him to set his house in order.