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.]]
The Shunammite woman had lost her promised heir, and all which had happened, seemed illogical. The son of promise so mercifully given some years earlier had died. Why? Why would he die when you consider the miraculous way he had been given? There was another son of promise whose father had to face almost the same thing. Abraham waited many decades for the son and then God asked for him to be sacrificed. It made no sense that God promised the heir over such a long period then to take him away again. Abraham could have said, “No, Lord, I am not going to put my son to death because all this is illogical,” but Abraham believed that the Lord was even able to raise his slain son. Hebrews tells us that. Abraham’s faith was unswerving and rested in the God he knew, and in the One who walked with the man, the friend of God. When in any trial, even in the “illogical and making no sense” situations, it is our faith that is to hold fast in a full trust. Trust is rest with a quiet confidence. Trust in God. He knows the end from the beginning.
What thoughts went through the woman’s head as her dying son sat on her lap? Imagine what was her grief when the boy died shortly after. What was the Lord doing? None of this seems real!
What was the boy’s illness, and does it matter? He called out, “My head. My head!” I thought it strange that every commentator I read, suggested he had sunstroke for being in the fields. I have to be convinced of that for I reject it, but the cause does not matter. He was not in the field all day. He went out to see his father. The fact of his death does.
2Kings 4 v 21 [[and she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door behind him, and went out. 2Kings 4:22 Then she called to her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may run to the man of God and return,” 2Kings 4:23 and he said, “Why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath,” and she said, “It will be well.” 2Kings 4:24 Then she saddled a donkey and said to her servant, “Drive and go forward. Do not slow down the pace for me unless I tell you,”]]
I would not say that was desperation to seek Elisha. Who better to fix your computer than the person who put it together. Elisha was vitally involved in this son being given to the woman, and so Elisha might have an answer. It would be wrong to say the woman had no faith in God. She needed direction and advice, all of it in the will of God.
2Kings 4 v 25 [[so she went and came to the man of God to Mount Carmel. It came about when the man of God saw her at a distance, that he said to Gehazi his servant, “Behold, yonder is the Shunammite. 2Kings 4:26 Please run now to meet her and say to her, ‘Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?’” and she answered, “It is well.”]]
She set out and did not stop, travelling a distance of 30 km NW. Just before she got to Elisha, his servant was sent to inquire how she was and she answered, “It is well.” That included the question asking how the child was! Did Elisha know? We learn from the next verse that Elisha did not know of the boy’s death, but the woman was not going to blabber on to the servant.
2Kings 4 v 27 When she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught hold of his feet, and Gehazi came near to push her away but the man of God said, “Let her alone, for her soul is troubled within her, and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.”
Interesting reaction this was from Gehazi, the servant. It perhaps did not show much discernment or respect. After all, this woman had cared for both Elisha and the servant for many years. Elsiha quickly gathered that the woman was in great distress of soul.
2Kings 4 v 28 Then she said, “Did I ask for a son from my lord? Did I not say, ‘Do not deceive me?’” 2Kings 4:29 Then he said to Gehazi, “Gird up your loins and take my staff in your hand, and go your way. If you meet any man, do not salute him, and if anyone salutes you, do not answer him, and lay my staff on the lad’s face.” 2Kings 4:30 The mother of the lad said, “As the LORD lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you,” and he arose and followed her.
Verse 28 is hurting distress speaking. She could not understand why God would do this? The instructions were given to Gehazi to go on before, and Elisha and the woman would follow. Can you see this woman in distress going with Elisha? She knew God’s power lay with Elisha, and I think all her hope lay in Elisha. The prophet did not encourage her and never mentioned having faith in God like we might have done. He and the woman hurried on.
2Kings 4 v 31 Then Gehazi passed on before them and laid the staff on the lad’s face, but there was neither sound nor response, so he returned to meet him and told him, “The lad has not awakened.”
Okay now, what do we make of this? The exercise did not work. Commentators have so many opinions, from saying Elisha acted in haste, to, it was a token exercise just to comfort the mother. Those faithless ideas I reject. I have my own idea. The prophet’s staff was an object of authority, so taking the staff and laying it on the face of the boy was marking him out to wait the authority of God through the prophet. It was not meant to perform this miracle as Gehazi probably thought.
I saw a good comment in The Pulpit Commentary – “Although on some occasions it has pleased God to allow miracles to be wrought by the instrumentality of lifeless objects, as when Elisha's bones resuscitated a dead man (2 Kings 13 v 21), and when power and strength went out from the hem of our Lord's garment (Mark 5 v 25-34), and still more remarkably, when "handkerchiefs or aprons from the body of Paul were brought unto the sick, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits were cast out of them" (Acts 19 v 12); yet the instances are, comparatively speaking, rare, and form exceptions to what may be called the usual Divine economy of miracles.”
2Kings 4 v 32 [[When Elisha came into the house, behold the lad was dead and laid on his bed 2Kings 4:33 so he entered and shut the door behind them both, and prayed to the LORD, 2Kings 4:34 and he went up and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth, and his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands, and he stretched himself on him, and the flesh of the child became warm. 2Kings 4:35 Then he returned and walked in the house once back and forth, and went up and stretched himself on him and the lad sneezed seven times and the lad opened his eyes. 2Kings 4:36 He called Gehazi and said, “Call this Shunammite,” so he called her and when she came in to him, he said, “Take up your son.” 2Kings 4:37 Then she went in and fell at his feet and bowed herself to the ground, and she took up her son and went out.]]
What is the key verse of those 6 verses? Of course, it has to be verse 33, prayer. The account is very concise and matter of fact. The boy was raised to life again, after which the woman was called and she came and bowed at Elisha's feet in gratitude, not worship, then took up her son and left the special room that had been made for the prophet.
Are you aware that Elijah performed a similar miracle? 1Kings 17 v 20 and he called to the LORD and said, “O LORD my God, have You also brought calamity to the widow with whom I am staying, by causing her son to die?” 1Kings 17:21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and called to the LORD and said, “O LORD my God, I pray You, let this child’s life return to him,” 1Kings 17:22 and the LORD heard the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child returned to him and he revived.
Bishop Hall says in Comparing the Two Prophets,: “How true an heir, is Elisha of his master, not in his graces only, but in his actions. Both of them divided the waters of Jordan, the one as his last act, the other as his first. Elijah’s curse was the death of the captains and their troops; Elisha’s curse was the death of the children: Elijah rebuked Ahab to his face; Elisha rebuked Jehoram: Elijah ended the drought of Israel by rain from heaven; Elisha ended the drought of the three kings by waters gushing out of the earth: Elijah increased the oil of the Sareptan; Elisha increased the oil of the prophet’s widow: Elijah raised from death the Sareptan’s son; Elisha, the Shunammite’s: both of them had one mantle, one spirit; both of them climbed up one Carmel, one heaven.”
Well might we wonder what happened to the son when he died. Today there are a multitude of accounts about people supposedly dying and coming back, or being taken to heaven and walking around and speaking with Jesus and all the rest of it. Listen carefully. All of that is rubbish. Even the elect can be deceived with this nonsense. It is demonic. No one dies and comes back. No one is taken on trips to heaven and comes back with all these deceptive stories.
It was some time before Elisha arrived at Shunamite woman’s house. Meanwhile, what did happen to the boy? There can be only two possibilities. The first was that he was taken to Paradise, and the second, was that God kept him in a state of unconsciousness, such as one has in an operation. He definitely died. We can not doubt that. Reject all notions that say he was unconscious or in a coma. He died!
Would you be surprised if I said that there was no human being in heaven until after the cross? Well, don’t be surprised because it is true. No human being was in heaven because no human being was fit for heaven. In the Old Testament period, everyone who died went to hell. Now don’t be alarmed. Hell is the same as “sheol”, the Hebrew word for death, grave, and hell. Everyone went to hell, but not all went to the same place.
I want you to recall the story told (it is not a parable) by Jesus about a poor beggar with sores, called Lazarus, and a rich man the bible students know as “Dives”. The poor beggar died and went to hell. The rich man died, and went to hell (not because he was rich). However, that account in Luke 16 says that Lazarus was in Abraham’s bosom, the place known as Paradise, while the rich man was in hell. Hell was compartmentalised with a great gulf between two sides. You remember Abraham said that no one could cross from one side to the other. When the righteous people of the Old Testament died, they went to Paradise where the saved were held. The unrighteous ones went to the other side which was just called “hell”. Even Jesus went to hell. He did, but He went to Paradise. Here is the verse - Psalm 16 v 10 [[for You will not abandon my soul to Sheol. Neither will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.]] Also quoted by Peter in Acts 2 v 27 and 31. When the dying thief on the cross turned to Jesus, he was told, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
The Old Testament saints had their sins covered but not properly atoned for. That is why they could not go to heaven. The animal sacrifices covered their sins. Only the blood of the Lamb of God could make full atonement for sin completely, so that all these saints in Paradise could then be received in heaven. When Christ ascended, they ascended with Him. Here is the verse - Ephesians 4 v 8 [[Therefore it says, “When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men.”]] These saints in Paradise were like captives there, but the Lord led them to heaven, the first inhabitants to enter heaven.
What of the boy then? Well I think God held him in a state of soul unconsciousness, probably along with all the other non-Christ resurrections in the bible. The recorded resurrections of normal people are these -
1. Elijah raised the son of the Zarephath widow from the dead (1 Kings 17:17-22).
2. Elisha raised the son of the Shunammite woman from the dead (2 Kings 4:32-35).
3. A man was raised from the dead when his body touched Elisha’s bones (2 Kings 13:20, 21).
4. Jesus raised the son of the widow of Nain from the dead (Luke 7:11-15).
5. Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead (Luke 8:41, 42, 49-55).
6. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-44).
7. Peter raised Dorcas from the dead (Acts 9:36-41).
8. Eutychus was raised from the dead by Paul (Acts 20:9, 10).
The son of the Shunammite woman was resurrected/raised and after that lived for the glory of God. Amen!
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
