2 Kings 7:1-20 Do something different.
Introduction
The Syrians were in the middle of a war with Israel and they had come to the city of Samaria to lay siege to it. It wasn’t long before all the resources within the city were running out and the people were beginning to starve. The desperation was so great that people were pushed to cannibalism just to stay alive. God’s man, the prophet, at the time was Elisha. He also was within the city sitting in his house with the elders. The king blamed God and Elisha for what was happening and had sent someone to detain Elisha so that he could cut his head off. Before the messenger got to the door Elisha had told the elders that he was on his way with the king in hot pursuit. Instead of detaining Elisha the elders detained the messenger until the king arrived. The king’s response to this situation was to grow impatient with God he said,
"Surely this calamity is from the Lord; why should I wait for the Lord any longer". This is where we are going to pick up the scene.
Read 2 Kings 7:1-20
First thing we are going to look at is the fact that when God speaks into a situation there are those that accept it and those that despise it.
The King.
The king was looking for God to do something waiting for God to do something, but when he heard that people were beginning to eat their children he became angry and frustrated with God. To hear God speak into he situation was enough to stop his angry intent to behead Elisha. His patience was renewed.
It has to be one of the most comforting things that when everything around you is going bad a word from God brings calm.
The King’s man.
For the kings right hand man, the one who the king leans on for guidance and wisdom, and the one who probably at this time was giving strength and counsel to the King. But this kind of man is not the right man to have at your side when you are waiting for God because he is the one who doesn’t believe and the one who despises the word when it does come.
Disbelief of the promises of God cuts men off from the blessings of their fulfilment.
Despisers miss out - Joshua and Caleb inherited and those that despised died out.
If God says it will happen tomorrow it will happen and I want to be there.
When God speaks it is specific and without mistake. He creates something out of nothing. Eg Genesis "God said let there be…" and there was.
The Lepers
4 leprous men were unaware that God had spoken to the king. Because of their condition, sick, diseased, with leprosy they were rejected, humiliated and an embarrassment. They were permitted under normal conditions to neither go in side the city nor be with normal healthy people. They had to keep to their own out of the way.
For what Elisha said to happen a miracle was needed. You would expect the miracle to come from Elisha that he would stand in the central place in the city and prophecy and pray, calling out to God for deliverance but that wasn’t the way it was coming. We wait for the names and famous people to bring the deliverance and the revival but just maybe the deliverance will come through the lepers.
Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity of magnifying his own power; his time to appear for his people is when their strength is gone. He does not do this through a name or a famous person. He does what he does despite who we are.
Do you consider yourself better than a leper? Spurgeon said that he was nothing more than one beggar showing another beggar where to get bread. I think today that God is looking for a handful of beggars or lepers to go into the enemy camp and bring back the spoils.
God wants to perform a miracle here and now but who will rise up and go into the camp to see it.
The Lepers reasoning
What are we doing here? Are we not like the lepers sitting outside the city gates reasoning together. Despised by society. Thought neurotic and weak by many. Isolated due to our belief. Even the other churches in the town don’t really bother with us. But God is going to do a miracle a new thing this year. Do you want that? Do you want things to change?
God says come let us reason together.
Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Here we have to recall some of the great men of the Bible such as Moses and Abraham, the way they stood before God and reasoned with him for the lives of people. The Lepers reasoned amongst themselves but we have one whom we can turn to, to reason and talk. Intercession is reasoning with God. Through intercession we have the God given grace to see situations change as we talk to God about people and circumstances.
If God were the Commander in Chief of war then we have a right to come to his table where all his plans are laid out. We have a right to input because He wants us to reason with Him. Abraham reasoned with Him over Sodom and Gomorrah and saved his Nephew, Lot and family. Every prayer of intercession is reasoning with God. When we come to the table we come as adopted sons of God as officers in his army. But the commander in Chief knows best. When he speaks, he speaks truth and power into a situation. The word consumes and destroys the enemy.
Jer 23:29 Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?
The 4 lepers were faced with a bit of a dilemma. They understood how society viewed them. They understood the nature of their disease. They felt the need to get a decent meal.
The lepers discussed 3 options
1. Go back to the city and die with everybody else in the famine.
2. Sit here and do nothing and die from hunger.
3. Go forward, do something different. Go to the enemy camp. If they kill us then it is a quick death but maybe they will be merciful.
What they didn’t realise is that God had already sorted out the enemy and all they had to do was walk into the camp and become the owners of all that was their. All they had to do was take the plunder and not beg for it. God’s promise to Joshua was,
Jos 1:3 "Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses.
The promise relates to the Church today. We have the authority of God in whatever situation we are in. but the lepers were conditioned differently. Society said they were nothing except worthy of death and to the Syrian too they were worthy for death also. They went to the Syrians because they were desperate.
For us.
1 Withdraw.
If we say that we are going to retreat into church life then we enter into a famine and eventually death. We have to look at our options. Go back to how things have always been. Do this year what we did last year. Yes we will get by but do you want to settle for it. If we settle for it then it may not be long before we aren’t here at all. Now that is the safest choice.
Let’s look at where we are at. look at the safe choice and,
2 Stay here.
We can stay here. Comfortable with what we have, maintaining things as they are being thankful to God when new people decide to join us. But this again will lead to spiritual death as well, God has so much more to give us and to do through us.
The biggest hindrance to many people is 3 C’s. Comfort, cost and conviction too much of the first 2 and not enough of the third.
3 Get desperate
Or we can get desperate and throw ourselves on God cry out to Him to change us and to heal us to do something with us that we haven’t let him do before or for a very long time. When we get desperate then we will be able to go and plunder the good stuff from the enemy.
Imagine yourself as one of the lepers outside the city walls, what are you going to do?
We have the remedy, the power to rectify the situation and change things. The Lepers didn’t realise that God had spoken. We on the other hand can’t say that. We know that God has spoken because we have the Bible, God’s word to us.
The lepers knew that the enemy had resources. The knew if the went into the city they would die and if they stayed where they were they would die so the only sensible but to some foolish option was to go over to the enemy camp and see what would happen. If the Syrians killed them then they have lost nothing but if they spared them then they would live.
So they had nothing to loose but everything to gain. They did not know what was waiting for them. And when they had arrived at the camp God had already performed the miracle. They had no knowledge of what the man of God had said but decided to go anyway.
Who knows what would have happened if they had not gone. Maybe many more people would have died before the king sent out a patrol to see about terms of surrender.
Who would have thought that God would use a leper, God will not share his glory with another.
Everything was in the camp
God didn’t perform this miracle because of the King or Elisha nor even the Lepers but because God was waiting to bless Israel.
If it was not for the lepers desperation and decision most, if not everyone, would have died within the city walls.
Elisha had spoken the word of God the miracle had already happened it was only waiting on the lepers to go and see what was for plundering.
This town (your town) is like the enemy camp just waiting for a handful of lepers to go and see what is for taking. The worst anybody can do to you is to take away the body they can not hurt what is inside, that is God’s and he is looking after it.
God gave everything into the hands of the lepers, the most unlikely heroes are still being talked about today all over the world.
Now for some of us we have giants in our lives that stop us time and time again from serving God. Well it is not the giant that stops you - it is the fear of the giant that stops you
Time for the lepers to rise up. God can turn a leper into a hero that can save a nation. We just have to rise up to the call of God on our lives. What call you may say? The call to preach the gospel to all nations.
It has to be said that the lepers acted out of desperate need. Their reason was to be fed not to save a nation. The miracle had happened and the battle had been won according to the word spoken. This was done by God not by human hands.
Fear says "no"
Apathy says "wait"
Weakness says "it can’t be done"
Personality weakness says "1 won’t do it"
Courage says "yes"
What did the lepers do?
They entered the first tent filled their bellies and took all they could carry and hid it. Then they entered the second tent and did the same.
Then they came to their senses after a good meal and change of clothes and sufficient wealth to see themselves alright, they never had to beg again. They realised that the deliverance was for everyone not just themselves.
Job 27:16,17 The wealth of the sinner laid up for the just, "Though he (the wicked man) heaps up silver like dust, And piles up clothing like clay- He may pile it up, but the just will wear it, And the innocent will divide the silver."
Isa 33:1 The spoilers spoiled "Woe to you who plunder, though you have not been plundered; And you who deal treacherously, though they have not dealt treacherously with you! When you cease plundering, You will be plundered; When you make an end of dealing treacherously, They will deal treacherously with you."
They couldn’t continue with a clear conscience. Despite how the people in the city had treated them, they couldn’t carry on without telling them. They did what any of us would have done, they went to the city to tell of the good news. There is such a fight for the lives of this town and nation and we have good news that will save their lives.
These Lepers underwent a history change. From the outcast they became the deliverer. From the beggar they became the wealthy.
They also changed the history of all that were behind the City walls. They would have stayed in and starved but they went out after the miracle and had their needs met.
When the king responded to the good news of salvation and sent some of his men into the enemy camp the word that was spoken by Elisha came to pass. Even to the point where the one that despised and mocked the word spoken by Elisha died in the rush.
Where does this leave us
With a decision.
To go back and withdraw into church
Stay where we are and do exactly the same as what we did last year. Has it worked?
Or get up and see the miracle that God has already worked upon the people of this town.
It won’t come to us we have to go to it.
What the Lepers gained was food, clothing and wealth. And something much better, they saved the lives of thousands.
If we learn from the Lepers then we can have a similar attitude. If I die I die but I’m going to plunder the enemy camp. I’m not going to withdraw into church nor will I just sit here and let things continue the way they did last year and the year before that. I’m going to pick myself up and go and do exactly what God wants me to do. Even if that means standing up to a few giants or invading armies.
We have to rise up and defy the mockery of the enemy and his taunts so that we can be exactly where and how God wants us.
We can sit back in fear, but the Bible says that the fear of man brings a snare
We can wallow in self-pity, "if only people knew how difficult things were for me."
Or we can get desperate, like the Lepers and just go and see what God will do for us.
Don’t be men who will see it and not be a part of it - be in the current of the stream where God is.
Maybe our prayer for the new year could be - God if you have brought me to such a time as this, what do you want me to do?
What do you think He will say? Withdraw? Stay there? Or do something different this year that could just save the lives of thousands of people?
