ELISHA'S MINISTRY - TRAMPLE THE LORD AND YOU WILL BE TRAMPLED BY THE LORD 2Kings 6:24 - 7:1-20
SERIES – MESSAGES ON ELISHA – HIS LIFE AND MINISTRY Number 18
SUFFERING IN SAMARIA
2Kings 6 v 24 Now it came about after this, that Ben-hadad king of Aram gathered all his army and went up and besieged Samaria, 2Kings 6:25 and there was a great famine in Samaria, and behold, they besieged it so that a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver.
And with that, we come to a most serious part of the Elisha story. This account has great ramifications for us today in our country and it is all because of the way man lives in accordance with God’s principles, or otherwise. We will trace these ideas out today.
Verse 24 begins with a siege of Samaria. The king of Aram, Ben-hadad, brought his whole army against Samaria, and if you can recall from a previous message, Naaman was the commander of that army. I just want to recall some background for our story starting with Samaria. Saul was the first king of Israel, followed by David, followed by his son Solomon. Solomon left problems behind him, and in this one case, he left his stupid son, Rehoboam as king. Solomon may have written the book of Proverbs, the book of wisdom, but his sons were stupid. There is a lesson in this, but it will take us off our track. Anyway, because of Rehoboam’s stupidity, the kingdom of twelve tribes was split into 10 tribes and 2 tribes in a rebellion. The 10 were led by a man, Jereboam, a foreman under Rehoboam in his workforce.
Jereboam wanted to defile the 10 tribes when they split, so he set up two golden calves for idolatrous worship in Bethel, and the whole top half of Israel became known as Samaria. It was also called The Northern Kingdom, or Israel. The 2 tribes were Judah and Benjamin, and that was the Southern Kingdom or just Judah. Samaria continued in idolatry for all its history with not one good king. It continued for a couple of hundred years until destroyed by Assyria.
The people were still Jews, but there was a deep division often, and this lingered even until New Testament times when we read “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans”. The second part of the background I want to deal with is the connection of the Jew with the land. God’s blessings and judgements are always in the land. When the people called by His Name do right, God blesses them, but when they do wrong, as in worshipping worthless gods, then He curses the land with drought and crop failures. Samaria always did wrong and very few of God’s righteous ones could be found. Elijah and Elisha both ministered there and in Elijah’s time, only 7 000 righteous ones were known by God in Samaria (or Israel, if you like). Samaria suffered the hand of God upon it, and that is where our story today takes place.
The purpose of verse 2 is to tell us how desperate things were. The price for a donkey’s head at 80 shekels of silver was enormous and a kab of dove’s droppings for 5 shekels was a huge price. [July 2022 ? Silver = US $18.70 an ounce (Aus $27.17). One Shekel = US $7.52 (Aus $10.93). THEREFORE: Donkey’s head = US $602 (Aus $874.60). A kab is 1.2L. A quarter of a kab of dove’s dung = 300g = US $37.60 (Aus $54.63)]
The people were suffering, but the cause was unrighteousness. It was wickedness in high places but also in the hearts of the people. God will never honour unrighteousness. Our western nations today are just like this. Sin brings sadness, suffering and famine. Here the Samaritans are starving and are fearful.
2Kings 6 v 26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall a woman cried out to him saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” 2Kings 6:27 and he said, “If the LORD does not help you, from where shall I help you - from the threshing floor, or from the wine press?” 2Kings 6:28 The king said to her, “What is the matter with you?” and she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow,’ 2Kings 6:29 so we boiled my son and ate him, and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him,’ but she has hidden her son.” 2Kings 6:30 It came about when the king heard the words of the woman, that he tore his clothes - now he was passing by on the wall - and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body. 2Kings 6:31 Then he said, “May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today.”
This is not a nice incident. It is an ugly one but let us look at the players. The king was parading himself on the wall, and I don’t think he had any purpose for he was powerless in the siege. A woman cried out to him and in verse 27, the king gave what could be a cynical answer, or one in desperation. There was no solution. There was nothing on the threshing floor or nothing in the winepress – where the grapes were squashed. There was nothing he could do. The answer lay with the Lord, but then, it must come back to the people’s sin. Ahab’s son was king and like his nation, he served Baal and other heathen idols.
In verses 28 to 30 the woman relates her story, such a terrible one of cannibalism. Hunger will drive people to do unspeakable acts. History is full of desperation caused by famine and starvation. I think this story has so much pathos, hurt and feeling attached to it. Possibly there is guilt as well. The king was affected, but in what way? Did he feel for the people he governed? He would not repent of his idolatry, but he did tear his clothes and later put on sackcloth. He may have identified with his people in their great need, but the solution which was repentance before God, was a step too far for that wicked king. He would not do it. In fact it is so bad that in verse 3, he sought the execution of Elisha. The king was going to remove his head.
That does lead us to a very important point. Elisha was being blamed for Israel's woes. Wicked people turn on God’s people when in crisis. When Rome burned down, AD 64, Nero blamed the Christians and severely persecuted them. It was believed Nero lit that fire himself. All through the ages, it is Christians who are persecuted for the world’s woes.
I want to look at Australia for a bit. This nation is sitting under the judgement hand of God and that judgement will come. Wickedness controls the nation. The United States is no better. Even the pagan nations of old did not institute homosexual marriage as law, an affront to all the decency of God, and to the destruction of God-instituted marriage. The Lord hates it. Sodom did not escape, and neither will Australia. Only the most pagan of ancient civilisations ripped the children from mothers’ wombs, but Australia has legalised that same thing. Either the unborn child is killed before being taken from the womb, or it is taken out and then put to death. That is murder. Queensland has legislated it up until the day of birth! Children’s gender is turned upside down. You don’t have to be a boy or a girl. You don’t have to be male or female. The Government is indoctrinating that into school children. There are so many other acts the State Governments have enacted these past 5 years, but I won’t do more than those three.
Those three examples I will mention in regard to Genesis. God brought Adam and Eve together as one flesh. Jesus said “Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female.” God has a distinct gender line. Australia has abolished it. Jesus said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh?’ God’s has an absolute for marriage. Australia has abolished it. It is now man and man, or woman and woman or transgender and intersex and queer and all the other aberrations. It is an abomination, a wilful destruction of God’s early Genesis decree. Then God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it,” God decreed fruitfulness in sexuality. Australia has decreed that they be ripped from the womb. All Genesis in creation has been turned upside down. No wonder God will judge this nation and all like it.
Although Australia gets many droughts and floods, this current (most recent floods) one could well be God’s judgement, or His wake up call. When a country goes bad, Christians get blamed. Why do you think so much persecution is starting to come against Christians in Australia where they can not express views openly or there will be consequences? It is because this country is reeling under oppression with repressive and demonic laws, and Christians are being made the scapegoats, as was Elisha. There is nothing new under the sun. The wicked king in our story here was battling a judgement from God because of his sin, and he wanted to behead Elisha.
2Kings 6 v 32 Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him, and the king sent a man from his presence, but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door shut against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” 2Kings 6:33 While he was still talking with them, behold, the messenger came down to him, and he said, “Behold, this evil is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?”
The account now switches to Elisha. He was sitting in his house with the elders, and what an interesting meeting that would have been. Meanwhile the wicked king, Jehoram, had sent a man to Elisha either to despatch him or to arrest him. Nothing surprises God. He knows even before it happens. God instructed Elisha so that he could say to the elders, “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door shut against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” The King was following close behind bent of a horrible purpose. In verse 33 the king’s servant was speaking from outside the door, and said this, “Behold, this evil is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?” By this I think what the king meant was there would be no waiting for God. CBSC adds this – “Now his thought is of what shall be done next. The people are at the severest extremity, and God, who has allowed this evil to come upon the nation, gives His prophet no message of relief. In this conviction he is of the mind that Samaria shall be surrendered. Hence his language, “This evil is of the Lord’ and He allows it to continue, ‘why should I wait for the Lord any longer?” The servant relayed the King’s decision, and it seems Jehoram may have relented from his murderous intention, but then again, he was possibly thinking, “Why should I not now surrender to the Syrians, and slay the prophet who has so long deluded me with vain hopes? Following this there came a dramatic revelation from the Lord.
2Kings 7 v 1 Then Elisha said, “Listen to the word of the LORD. Thus says the LORD, ‘Tomorrow about this time a measure of fine flour shall be sold in the gate of Samaria for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel,’” 2Kings 7:2 and the royal officer on whose hand the king was leaning answered the man of God and said, “Behold, if the LORD should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” Then he (that is, Elisha) said, “Behold you shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”
God has seen the sin of the nation and its terrible consequences in human lives. He had sent a drought as judgement and as a means of returning the people to Himself. That did not transpire though, because sin will curse a human soul and darken it for the realm of Satan. The nation was blind. God showed His power in drought. Now He will show His power in plenty. Elisha states in verse 1 there will be such an abundance that the prices are just like it is being given away. Notice that it will be “about this time tomorrow”, an almost incredible prophecy, and in the circumstances, very hard to believe. Only faith could grasp such a thing. Through His servant, God reveals His will so that His hand is seen to be mighty where it is unexpected. When Jesus was here He did just the same. He healed the blind and performed miracles on seemingly impossible cases. Our wonderful God is a worker of miracles.
Faith grasps God’s hand and holds it fast. Scorn rejects God’s hand and repels itself from God. That is exactly what happened in verse 2. The king was leaning on the hand of the royal officer, and when he heard Elisha speak, he scorned and mocked. “Behold, if the LORD should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” was a comment of scorn, not of fact. Elisha was quick to respond, at the Lord’s leading, of course. He pronounced judgement on this official. He would see the miracle but would not be part of it. Do you remember early in Elisha’s ministry when youths mocked and scorned Elisha and they were mauled by she-bears in judgement? God will not be mocked. Every year in that vile homosexual Mardi Gras through the streets of Sydney, placards mock Christians and God, and blasphemies are everywhere. They think it is clever of them. They do the bidding of Satan with their perversion, and their mocking. A frightful judgement awaits them unless they repent. May God lead them to repentance. Incidentally, you will not see even one negative against Islam at that Mardi Gras! I wonder why!!!
The account continues in chapter 7 so we will read it (a lengthy reading) from verse 3 to verse 15. In the reading, take note of these four honourable men.
2Kings 7 v 3 Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate and they said to one another, “Why do we sit here until we die? 2Kings 7:4 If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ then the famine is in the city and we shall die there, and if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us go over to the camp of the Arameans. If they spare us, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall but die.” 2Kings 7:5 They arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Arameans. When they came to the outskirts of the camp of the Arameans, behold, there was no one there, 2Kings 7:6 for the Lord had caused the army of the Arameans to hear a sound of chariots and a sound of horses, even the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to come upon us.” 2Kings 7:7 Therefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents and their horses and their donkeys, even the camp just as it was, and fled for their life. 2Kings 7:8 When these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they entered one tent and ate and drank, and carried from there silver and gold and clothes, and went and hid them; and they returned and entered another tent and carried from there also, and went and hid them. 2Kings 7:9 Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, but we are keeping silent. If we wait until morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let us go and tell the king’s household,” 2Kings 7:10 So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city, and they told them, saying, “We came to the camp of the Arameans, and behold, there was no one there, nor the voice of man, only the horses tied and the donkeys tied, and the tents just as they were,” 2Kings 7:11 and the gatekeepers called, and told it within the king’s household. 2Kings 7:12 Then the king arose in the night and said to his servants, “I will now tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know that we are hungry. Therefore they have gone from the camp to hide themselves in the field saying, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall capture them alive and get into the city.’” 2Kings 7:13 One of his servants answered and said, “Please, let some men take five of the horses which remain, which are left in the city. Behold, they will be in any case like all the multitude of Israel who are left in it. Behold, they will be in any case like all the multitude of Israel who have already perished, so let us send and see.” 2Kings 7:14 They took therefore two chariots with horses, and the king sent after the army of the Arameans saying, “Go and see,” 2Kings 7:15 and they went after them to the Jordan, and behold, all the way was full of clothes and equipment, which the Arameans had thrown away in their haste. Then the messengers returned and told the king.
What can we gain from that reading?
1. The king of Aram and commander Naaman knew about leprosy, and had the 4 lepers met with them, I suppose they would have got sympathy, but we surmise from silence.
2. The lepers applied logic to their situation before they made up their minds.
3. They had so many needful goods at their disposal but that troubled them. Verse 9 is where their honesty played its part - 2Kings 7 v 9 Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, but we are keeping silent. If we wait until morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let us go and tell the king’s household.” The lepers were God’s ambassadors.
4. Verse 12. Again this wicked king imagines a plot as he did when visited by Naaman. However it was all proven true.
We now come to the conclusion of the story in these verses - 2Kings 7 v 16 The people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. Then a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD. 2Kings 7:17 Now the king appointed the royal officer on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate, but the people trampled on him at the gate, and he died just as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king came down to him, 2Kings 7:18 and it came about just as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, “Two measures of barley for a shekel and a measure of fine flour for a shekel, shall be sold tomorrow about this time at the gate of Samaria.” 2Kings 7:19 Then the royal officer answered the man of God and said, “Now behold, if the LORD should make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?” and he said, “Behold, you shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it,” 2Kings 7:20 and so it happened to him, for the people trampled on him at the gate, and he died.
Conclusion. King Jehoram saw all this with his own eyes and more beside with Elisha, but he never did repent. Great will be his judgement. The royal official who trampled the word of the Lord in Elisha’s presence was himself trampled to death. State officials and Parliamentarians who trample God’s word today, and trample God’s people, will be trampled by God’s word at the judgement.
This was a serious message. Let us be careful in these last days of the Church age, to keep true to the bible in every word.
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
