Life is a total of our choices. There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist and live with them and in them, or to take the responsibility to change them. And it’s only when you exercise your right to choose, can you exercise the right to change.
You may think that in life, a lot of things happen to you a long the way. The truth may be, in life, you happen to a lot of things along the way. Where life has placed you, or where life has driven you, or where life has sentenced to you, where life has destined you, perhaps you are there to do that something that can happen only through you. Perhaps it’s through you that what needs to happen can only happen through you. And perhaps even in a gloomy situation, perhaps you can be the beacon of light that brings some glitter out of gloom. Even in a bleak situation, where life may be dying within you, perhaps the little life that is there is enough life to spark a resurrection.
Here we are again at this story of the four lepers, these lepers have a death sentence, they have a date with death, all men have that date, theirs were just more certain. Leprosy was a death sentence in those biblical days. When you were declared a leper, you were cut off, cut off from your family, cut off from your community, cut off from the Temple, cut off from your friends, cut off from your livelihood. You were sentenced to a leper’s colony or you made your abode outside the community of people because you were “unclean” and possibly contagious. The Syrian army had made its move against the Northern Kingdom (Samaria); the famine inside the city had impacted the lepers in greater ways. The Syrian army was no real threat for the lepers, no Syrians would come close to them, but the famine in the city meant that no food from inside of the gates could be left for them living on the outside. They are living with a death sentence of a disease, and now they are confronted with starvation. They have been hit with a double sentence of trouble.
And on last week we learned how they analyzed their situation, by looking at their options: Retreat (go back); Remain (sit here); and Risk (go and do something daring). These lepers are banded from entering the city, the famine has prevented those who were merciful to bring food out to them, their leprosy is not in remission, no healer is in town, and the Syrian army has camped outside of the city. Life is at an impasse, so what are the lessons we learn today. Perhaps the words of the poet James Russell Lowell are appropriate here: Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever …. But standeth God in the shadows… God is in the shadows… What the lessons these lepers teach us today are:
I. When you are at Life’s Dead End, There is an Alive God. vs.1
Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord, Tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.
God is not a Dead End God, your dead ends in life are not God’s. Sometimes we are in those situations, God comes to your Dead End and He makes away in dead end situation.
When God says something, God is going to do something! He had said through Elisha, something nobody believed and perhaps could not understand it. But Elisha says, by this time tomorrow, things will be better.
Child of God, you have a tomorrow in your faith, yes it may be like this today. But tomorrow! You may be in a pit today, but tomorrow!! You may be at life’s dead end today, but have a tomorrow faith. Tomorrow does not mean the next day for you, but it’s really means that your present is not your future.
1. Psalms 30:5 Weeping may endure for a night, but joy will come in the morning. You may be experiencing life’s night, but keep looking for the sunshine of the morning.
2. Job 23:10 But he knoweth the way I take, when he hath tested me, I shall come forth as gold. (Test by the fire)
3. I Corinthians 15:58 Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
But you got to have the reasoning of the lepers.
II. When you do the Uncommon you may Experience the Unexpected. Vs. 4b.
Now, therefore, come, let us fall unto the host of the Syrians; if they save us alive, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall but die.
A. They chose not to be defined by their negative or helpless condition, but they chose to be defined by their choice to change what they could. The lepers realized there was nothing they could do about their lives as lepers, they could not do anything about leprosy. So they chose to do something about what was in their control. When you do the uncommon you open up the passage way for the unexpected.
1. The impossible all of sudden is brought into the possibility.
2. The improbable all of sudden becomes probable.
3. The door that was closed gets cracked!
4. The window that was locked, the lock breaks.
B. Faith sometimes asks us to do the uncommon, to do what seems insane, to step out of that which is comfortable and experience the uncomfortable. Nothing in the story suggests that the lepers did this on faith, as matter of fact the story indicated they acted more out of frustration that faith.
But if the result of this was done on frustration, what would be the results of faith in God if faith was the foundation.
This year, why don’t you allow Faith to go in operation when you have been pushed to the point of Frustration? Instead of rolling the dice, fall on your knees and say In your Word you said:
1. No weapons formed against me shall prosper!
2. For in the time of trouble, you shall hide me!
3. When I pass through the waters, they shall not drown me, the fire shall not consume.
4. You will never leave me or forsake me!
5. Give and it shall be given to you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will come to me.
Your condition may be the invitation for a miracle!
Sometimes life brings you into a place of broken-ness to make you whole. Sometimes life brings you to the place of messiness to experience the providence of miracles. Sometimes when you at your lowest, God will manifest Himself at His highest. Sometimes to encounter the very best of God’s grace and mercy, you may be at your very worst.
The place of fear could be the place of new faith, your place of fear, may become the place that you discovered your strength and God’s power.
III. When a Way is made, You should not Hold your Peace. Vss.9-10
Then they said one to another, we do not well. This day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace. If we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us; now, therefore, come that we may go and tell the king’s household. So they came and called unto the porter of the city; and they told them, saying, We came to the camp of the strains, and behold there was no man there, neither voice of man, but horses tied, and asses tied, and tents as they were.
Sometimes God does what he does with a sense of :
AWESOME-NESS!!!
MAGNIFICIENT!!!!
WOW-NESS!!!
Sometimes it’s just too hard to believe, it’s too good to be true!
This year, let’s see if He will not do something AWESOME, but you got to be an Awesome believer!
This year let’s see if He will not do something Magnificent, but you got to be a magnificent worshipper!
This year let’s see if He will not do the Wow!!! But you got to be a Wowing faith person.
He is a God who opens Red Seas! What Your Red Sea? He is a God the helps you to cross Your Jordon? What’s your Jordon? He is a God that brings down the walls of Jericho! What’s your Jericho? He is a God that meets you in the furnace of pain and heat! What’s your furnace! He is a God that slays your giants! What’s your Goliath? He is a God that delivers you from bondage! What is your bondage?
WOW! Faith!
WOW! Favor!
Awesome! God!
Awesome! Greatness!
Marvelous! Things!
Marvelous! Testimony!
Magnificent! Mercy!
Magnificent! Miracles!
