DEATH IN THE POT
2 KINGS 4:38-44
#faith #deathinthepot
INTRODUCTION… Bad Meal Last Week (p)
I do the majority of the dinner preparation in our home. I think I am a fantastic cook. My family would probably say I am an average cook because when I decide to throw together things in my own way that my cooking tends not to go well. Sometimes. Other times I am an Emeril Lagasse genius. Bam! Bam! Bam! Normally I think I do okay. Abby has been finding some recipes she wants to try recently and it has been nice when she cooks as well.
Last week I had some Amish-type noodles and I decided to throw together a little soup.
I realized that I did not have any chicken stock or any other kind of stock so I just used water and added some poultry seasoning. I sautéed up an onion finely diced. Added chicken. I then decided in my ‘thrown together soup’ that I needed something other than just chicken and noodles and flavored water.
I added a can of corn. It still needed a little something. We have canned green beans, but I decided that green beans in my soup was not going to work. I went to the freezer and found a bag of frozen stir fry vegetables. It was then that my culinary genius struck. I picked out of the mix the carrots and a few peppers. Genius. I dumped in the spices like salt and pepper and even added some more poultry seasoning for good measure. I should note that I had planned to add some chicken Ramen noodle spice packets left lying around, but decided it was not necessary.
All those ingredients went into the pot. Simmering and getting happy in the pot. I made some kind of chicken noodle soup. Dinner time came and those of us home sat down to eat. They all hated it. To be honest, I did not much care for it either. To preview our passage today, no one yelled “there is death in the pot!” but I suppose they could have. “This is bland.” “This is terrible.” “This is just chunky water” were the things that were actually said.
The end result was a barely eaten meal and Ian was tasked with going to Dairy Queen and getting food for those who were still hungry. You win some. You lose some.
TRANSITION
The passage we are going to look at today does in fact have the phrase “there is death in the pot!” shouted in it. It is an odd passage from 2 Kings 4 in the life of the prophet Elisha and I believe this odd passage has an important message for us today. This passage about Elisha naturally comes in two parts, but we are going to read the whole passage to begin.
READ 2 KINGS 4:38-44 (ESV)
38 And Elisha came again to Gilgal when there was a famine in the land. And as the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, he said to his servant, “Set on the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.” 39 One of them went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine and gathered from it his lap full of wild gourds, and came and cut them up into the pot of stew, not knowing what they were. 40 And they poured out some for the men to eat. But while they were eating of the stew, they cried out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it. 41 He said, “Then bring flour.” And he threw it into the pot and said, “Pour some out for the men, that they may eat.” And there was no harm in the pot.
42 A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give to the men, that they may eat.” 43 But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” So he repeated, “Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’ ” 44 So he set it before them. And they ate and had some left, according to the word of the LORD.
TRANSITION
The passage naturally is split in two… honestly… for a reason we will eventually get to… so we are going to look at verses 38-41 first.
FIRST PASSAGE: 2 KINGS 4:38-41
What is going on in this passage?
The prophet Elisha, who was the prophet right after the great prophet Elijah, is in Gilgal where there is a prophetic school. It is a time of stress and need and hardship because there is a famine in the land. Famine means a scarcity of food. Famine means harsh weather which results in a lack of crops. Famine means people are hungry with limited ability to satisfy their hunger. It is a trying time.
Elisha tasks one of the students with making dinner for the rest of the group. He sets himself to the task. He heads out into the area around the school and finds some kind of wild vine full of gourds. I am sure the guy was celebrating on the find in the midst of a famine. He gathered as much as he could carry and then went back to the school. He cut them up. Made the soup. I have to say, I don’t know this guy, but I like this guy. He took what was on hand and what he found and served the other students at the prophetic school. Culinary genius. Bam! Bam! Bam!
Dinner is served and the men began to eat. Something about the mysterious vine’s gourdes did not sit well with the men. They claimed it was poison. The men cried out to Elisha in verse 40, “man of God there is death in the pot!”
There is a famine which means stress and fear and being unsettled about food because food is scarce. Now they finally have a meal and the meal seems poisoned somehow. The wild vine was unknown and the stuff the guy collected could in fact have been inedible. What a disaster! Scarce food and now the food they do have tastes like it is poisoned.
Here is where the passage gets odd.
Elisha, in verse 41, calls for some flour, throws it in the pot and tells them to serve the stew again. Everyone eats the stew and verse 41 everyone concludes with “there was no harm in the pot.”
There is no explanation given on how Elisha knew to get flour and put it in the pot.
There is no explanation given if indeed the stew in the pot was actually poisonous.
There is no explanation given how the stew went from inedible to edible by adding flour.
This first part of the passage ends with nothing really being explained. We are left with “a bad taste in our mouth” in this passage and an unexplained mystery. All we are left with are questions.
TRANSITION
The passage is naturally split in two for this express purpose. I believe we are meant to read verses 38-41 and then have a big question mark hanging over our heads and a mystery. What in the world is going on? What does this mean?
ILLUSTRATION… Kelly’s Dinner with Cracked Platter (p)
I think it was about ten years ago, Kelly had it in her mind to make an expensive recipe that was supposed to be out of this world: Chicken Cacciatore. This is one of those recipes that you have to go to a specialty store to get some of the ingredients. Not only was this an expensive recipe and complicated to make, but it would take hours and hours to prepare. If I remember right, she might have even started the day before. You know a meal is going to be good if the cook has to start days in advance to get it going.
Anyway, from what I remember, we all tried to stay out of her way and help when she asked. Parts were coming together. Items were chopped and finished. I believe I was setting the table when I heard a scream from the kitchen. It was not a “I cut a finger off with a knife” scream, but more of a scream of surprise mixed with anger mixed with disappointment.
I walk into the kitchen and Kelly had begun to place elements of her dish on a large glass platter we had. It was a nice dinner and deserved to be plated nicely and served nicely. Kelly had placed all of the chicken for the meal on the platter and the platter cracked underneath the meal. It shattered into pieces under the hotness of the meat. She had spent days planning and making this meal and in a moment, the meal was ruined. We decided it was ruined because we could not tell if there was glass in the chicken or not. We decided this very expensively made meal was now worthless. There was possible death in the dish.
That was the last time Kelly ever cooked. That’s not true, but it is a funny way to end the story.
TRANSITION
We have a small mystery going on. What happened in verses 38-41? Was there death in the pot or not? The second part of this passage leads us to the answer to the mystery.
SECOND PASSAGE: 2 KINGS 4:42-44
READ 2 KINGS 4:42-44 (ESV)
A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give to the men, that they may eat.” 43 But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” So he repeated, “Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’ ” 44 So he set it before them. And they ate and had some left, according to the word of the LORD.
What is going on in this passage?
The context is exactly the same from the previous verses. That’s important. The prophet Elisha, who was the prophet right after the great prophet Elijah, is in Gilgal where there is a prophetic school. It is a time of stress and need and hardship because there is a famine in the land. It is a trying time. Imagine the emotions and thoughts: Fear, uncertainty, loss, grief, feeling unsettled, anger.
In verse 42, a man comes and brings the prophets his tithe. We know the man is bringing his tithe because the term “firstfruits” is used. This particular man’s firstfruits consisted of 20 loaves of bread and some grain. This is a fantastic blessing given the fact that there is a famine in the land. In the midst of hunger and uncertainty, this man from Ball-shalishah shows up with an offering to aid the prophets. What a blessing!
And yet, there is an issue.
Verse 43 tells us that there are 100 men in the prophetic school. 100 men in a land having a famine. The food brought by the generous man is a great blessing, but it is not enough to feed all the hungry people at the school.
At this point, I would like you to notice a phrase that is repeated in both parts of this passage:
Verse 41: “Pour some out for the men, that they may eat.”
Verse 42: “Give to the men, that they may eat.”
Verse 43: “Give them to the men, that they may eat”
Three different times in this small passage we have a phrase about giving to the men “that they may eat.” We are meant to see the repetition. The repetition is meant to draw our eye as we read. We are meant to notice. In the Bible, when something is repeated, it is on purpose.
The first time “that they may eat” is mentioned we are left with a mystery.
The second time “that they may eat” is mentioned we are left with a problem.
The third time “that they may eat” is mentioned something is added that solves the preceding mystery and solves the preceding problem.
Three different times in this small passage we have a phrase about giving to the men “that they may eat.” We are meant to see the repetition. We are meant to see what is added the third time because it is what is added the third time that is spiritually beneficial for us.
After the third time in verse 43, we find out that the word of the Lord came to Elisha and instructed Elisha to hand out the food because God was going to do something miraculous. All would eat and there would be some leftover. God intervened and Elisha knew God was intervening and trusted in God. He had faith.
We see in verse 44 another repetition meant to underscore the point. In verse 43, the Lord said everyone would eat and have leftovers. The food was set before the men and God did what He said He was going to do. The men ate and there was food leftover. The Word of the Lord came true. God said He would make a way and God made a way. Verse 44 repeats and confirms this was “according to the word of the Lord.”
This ties us back in with the first part of the passage and our mystery about “death in the pot.” Remember…
There is no explanation given on how Elisha knew to get flour and put it in the pot.
There is no explanation given if indeed the stew in the pot was actually poisonous.
There is no explanation given how the stew went from inedible to edible by adding flour.
The answer is the same in both passages. The Word of the Lord came to Elisha and Elisha acted in faith. The first time, the Word of the Lord came to Elisha was with a pot of stew in front of the students. Whether God told him there was nothing poisonous in the pot or whether God told him to throw flour in the pot and God Himself would make the stew edible, we do not know. We aren’t told about God’s message in the first part, but because of repetition, we know it was there. We know Elisha acted in faith.
The second time, the Word of the Lord came to Elisha and God specifically told him that God Himself would make a way for the small amount of food to feed all the men. Not only that, there would be leftovers. Elisha acted in faith and everyone was fed.
How do we know God did this?
How do we know this wasn’t just whiny men at the dinner table?
How do we know this wasn’t just each man eating a little so everyone could have some?
How do we know we are looking at miracles here?
We know because of 2 reasons.
The first reason is because of the pattern of the passage. The repetition leads us to the conclusion that the Word of the Lord came to His prophet and told him what to do. God was working. The addition of the Word of the Lord the third time “that they may eat” underscores God was working the whole time.
The second reason is because of Jesus.
* In Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, and John 6, we see Jesus Christ feeds 5,000 men plus women and children with five loaves and two fish. All of the people ate and they had leftovers.
* In Matthew 15 and in Mark 8, we see Jesus Christ feeds 4,000 men plus women and children with seven loaves and a few small fish. All of the people ate and they had leftovers.
These are miracles by Jesus Christ the Son of God meant to show the glory and power and compassion and provision of our God. These miracles are meant to show the world the power of Jesus as He is laying the foundation of the New Covenant. The miracles of Jesus with the 5,000 and the 4,000 are connected directly to 2 Kings 4 where God did such a miracle when His people were hungry. And there were leftovers.
GOSPEL
As a side note, God likes to leave leftovers. He likes to leave leftovers because it shows that not only can He provide, but He can provide more than we can ask or imagine. When God provides, “our cup runneth over” (Psalm 23:5, KJV). Ephesians 4:20-21 says, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Not only did God provide Jesus Christ for us to forgive us of our sins, but His presence in our lives spills over into purpose, freedom to live, guidance in the Spirit, and so much more. If you do not have Jesus Christ, you are missing out on the main thing God has for you and all the leftovers.
MEANING/APPLICATION
So, what does this passage in 2 Kings 4 have to do with us? I told you at the beginning that this was an odd passage in the life of the prophet Elisha and it has an important message for us today. That message is all about the action word “faith.”
I see in Elisha a man faced with famine and hunger and anxiety over mouths to feed and hardship. He responded in faith. That seems the simplest way to put it. Elisha faced the obstacles in his life with his ever-present all-powerful trustworthy God by his side.
I see in us people faced with all sorts of issues. We are all dealing with COVID in one way or another. Money issues. Relationship changes and stress. Doctor’s appointments. Cancer treatments. Friends dying. School pressures. Job changes. Decisions to make about new opportunities.
* If you are faced with fear, have faith in The Miracle-Working God.
* If anxiety rules your heart, trust in God and act in faith.
* If you are facing a season of grief, lean into faith and rely on God.
* If your life is unsettled and harder than it needs to be, believe in God working for your good.
* If you are angry, have faith in The Miracle-Working God.
* If you are in a spiritual famine, believe that God will provide.
CONCLUSION IN PRAYER
INVITATION
