ELISHA IN HIS EARLY MINISTRY – PART 2 - THE WATER BAD
SERIES – MESSAGES ON ELISHA – HIS LIFE AND MINISTRY Number 4
[B]. THE WATER IS BAD
2Kings 2 v 19 [[Then the men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold now, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees, but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful.” 2Kings 2:20 He said, “Bring me a new jar, and put salt in it,” so they brought it to him, 2Kings 2:21 and he went out to the spring of water and threw salt in it and said, “Thus says the LORD, ‘I have purified these waters. There shall not be from there death or unfruitfulness any longer,’”2Kings 2:22 so the waters have been purified to this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spoke.]]
(a). The Setting. There was a certain city that was an appealing place to live in. That city was Jericho and the aspect was very appealing. In fact Elisha was invited to confirm that, when the men of the city approached him. They had a problem. Their water was bad. What use is a fine location and splendid views and all things pleasant, but the water is just so awful? It is no good if the water is awful; no good for man or beasts or for crops. In fact the Hebrew word for the state of the land means bereaved and miscarrying, not producing properly. The Jordan valley was noted for bitter and brackish waters that the KJV calls “naughty water”.
In some ways this represents the lives of people. They have splendid outlooks. Their jobs are secure. Their incomes are great. All the things considered aspects of status, belonged to them. What more could they want? Well they will tell you they want nothing. One might say he just changed the car last year. Another will say he paid off the mortgage. These material aspects are the platforms men use to judge their condition. However, God looks on the hearts and He judges the heart to be bad. If the heart is bad, materialism will be in vain. Unlike the people from the town who saw Elisha and knew they had a problem, modern man does not realise he has a problem. Our water is bad. We need fixing. We drink at broken cisterns and the water is polluted. We wonder why we have wars and discord, and hate and calamity and misery, and international treasury problems, and unbalanced budgets, inflation and food shortages. It is because our water is bad. We can not fix our own bad water.
The men of the city were wise. They had bad water but they recognised they had a problem and they went to the right place to remedy that problem. That is because they were wise. They went to the man of God. What a different world this would be if men went to the correct place to fix the problems. God is the only solution, not men’s devised solutions. That means about 40% of people can’t even start to have their problems fixed because these are confessed atheists who think they just appeared from nowhere, and the solution to their own problems rests in their own hands. They drink their own bad water and will keep drinking the bad water. The rest of mankind will look for solutions to their problems from sources of disguised water, or coloured water, or sugared water, or medicinal water, but they are all variations on a theme. It continues to be bad water and bad water will never heal men’s problems. The men of the city were wise. They knew the answer lies with God and they went in a delegation to meet with the man of God. Can you remotely imagine what a blessing it will be if our city leaders met with a godly man and heeded his instruction!
When the problem of sin exists as it does or did for every person, the land remains unfruitful. What a person achieves in life in the long run, will count for nothing unless the water is right. What a farmer sows, even on the best prepared land, will count for nothing unless the water is clean and wholesome. Jesus warned His hearers to work for righteousness, not mammon. A common misconception is that a man is measured by his achievements – by his wealth, his status, his degrees, his popularity, his job, his possessions. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. It is what counts in the sight of God that really counts. In the long run, a man is measured by the blood of Christ, and on the measure of Calvary, a man stands or falls. Man measures fruitfulness by success. God measures fruitfulness by the achievements made through the Holy Spirit. The men who saw Elisha recognised that the unfruitfulness of their land was caused by the bad water, and that the solution lay outside their own hands.
(b). The Solution. Elisha ordered that a new jar (“cruse” KJV) and salt be brought to him. Let us look briefly at two words here. The first is “new”. There is a timely story from the days of Elijah to give us understanding on the word “new”. The prophets of Baal had their old altar of sin, but Elijah worked for the new. We read - 1Kings 18 v 3-4 [[and Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob to whom the word of the LORD had come, saying “Israel shall be your name.” With the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD, and he made a trench around the altar, large enough to hold two measures of seed.]] God does not try to repair the old, and the sinful, and the polluted. He starts from fresh. He created afresh. If any one be in Christ Jesus he is a new creation – he is not a repaired creation. The old is worthless and broken by sin. God takes the broken hearted and builds a new creation of regeneration through the Holy Spirit. Self-reformation and a patchwork of moral fixes, do not work. God’s work is from the start, a new creation. Thus it was that Elisha called for a new jar. It had to be a fresh work. No contamination, no vestiges of sin. All has to be clean and fresh. The same applies to us. We can’t do the Lord’s work if we are polluted and vestiges of sin are clinging to us. Make me a clean vessel.
The new jar and the salt are symbolic of a purification that was necessary for the sinful nation. The work of purification must be wrought by a purified agency. Unclean Christians can not do a pure work for God. Into this clean vessel, salt was added. The Lord spoke of salt. He said if salt has lost its savour it is worthless. He told His disciples that they were the salt of the earth. Now, what was He telling us? Salt is a type of antiseptic, of purification. A Christian is like antiseptic in the world. He and she are the savour of righteousness and cleansing in the world. He and she have the knowledge to help cleanse people’s lives in witness and lifestyle. We are the salt of the world.
Elisha took the jar with the salt and went to the spring of water where he knew God would perform His miracle. This spring was bad and its water was bad. In speaking about the tongue, James said, James 3 v 11 [[“Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?”]] Salt might be an unlikely agent for purifying brackish water. God is perfect though, in all His ways! Marah was where Moses had to throw a branch into the waters to cure the bitterness Exodus 15 v 23.
Sanctification which is a purifying, is the work of the Holy Spirit to create in us a life of holiness. It takes many, many decades for some of us to make much progress. [[“But like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behaviour because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”]] 1Peter 1 v 15-16.
Verse 21 is important. It was the Lord who purified the waters. It was not the jar, nor the salt, nor even Elisha. They were all agents in the Lord’s bidding. The skeptics come along and deny the miraculous hand of God in this, just like they do with the plagues in Moses’ time. They deny the conversion of the loaves and fishes. They deny the raising of Lazarus at Bethany. We need not worry about them. When the Lord returns for His Bride, those deniers won’t be raised. The Lord comes for the believers, not the liberals and deniers.
The work of God is a permanent work, and the closing verse 22 says the waters have been purified to this day. You have been purified by the blood of Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. They too, are permanent works for all eternity.
If you are still in the badness of sin, you too can be purified by God. Give your whole life to the Lord in repentance and receive Him into your life. It will be a work for all eternity.
At the beginning of Elisha’s ministry the understanding of the sons of the prophets was bad. Then the water at Jericho was bad and needed purification from God. The disrespectfulness from the sons of the prophets was bad.
The correct purification and fruitfulness belong to God. Without the Lord’s direction all will ultimately be failure. Elisha was a man led by God.
May the Lord bless you all.
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
