2 Kings 6:24-7:20
Kingdom, Come • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Scripture Reading:
Scripture Reading:
Introduction
Introduction
I’ve Never had to Be Hungry
Maybe Some of You have Experienced True Hunger
Hopefully No One Here has Ever Experienced Starvation
Whenever You’re Hungry Enough…
You’ll Start to Consider Eating Things…
That You’ve Never Considered Eating Before
Norah & I Love the Show “Survivor”
16-20 People are Marooned on an Island in Fiji…
And They have to Live Outside for 26 Days…
With Very Little Food/Resources
The Contestants that Last the Longest…
Typically Lose 20-30 Pounds
Sometimes, if a Team Does Poorly on Challenges…
They’ll Go Several Days Without Any Food
Whenever that’s the Case…
Some Contestants will Resort to Eating Whatever They can Find
Just this Season:
One Woman Tried Eating a Worm She Found
One Guy Ate Part of a Fish Eyeball
And in Past Seasons They’ve Eaten Much Worse
That Sounds Disgusting to Those of Us with Full Bellies
But When True Hunger Sets in…
You’re Willing to Consider Things You’ve Never Considered Before
We’re Going to See Exactly that in Our Text Tonight
2 Kings 6:24-7:20
2 Kings 6:24-7:20
2 Kings 6:24–25 (NLT)
24 Some time later, however, King Ben-hadad of Aram mustered his entire army and besieged Samaria. 25 As a result, there was a great famine in the city. The siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty pieces of silver, and a cup of dove’s dung sold for five pieces of silver.
Sometime After Israel Threw a Feast for the Aramean Raiders…
In the Capital City of Samaria…
The King of Aram Comes Back to Besiege the City…
That was So Merciful to His People
When an Army would Besiege a City…
They would Keep Anyone from Going in or Coming Out
Eventually the City would Run Out of Food & Water
Then the City would Either Surrender or Starve to Death
That’s What’s Happening to Samaria
A Live Horse Used to Be Sold for 150 Shekels of Silver
Now a Donkey’s Head would Sell for Over Half of that
And a Cup of Bird Poop…
Was Being Sold for 6 Months Worth of Wages
This Shows the Extreme Level of Starvation They were Facing
But, We’re about to Get a Much Worse Description
2 Kings 6:26–30 (NLT)
26 One day as the king of Israel was walking along the wall of the city, a woman called to him, “Please help me, my lord the king!” 27 He answered, “If the Lord doesn’t help you, what can I do? I have neither food from the threshing floor nor wine from the press to give you.” 28 But then the king asked, “What is the matter?” She replied, “This woman said to me: ‘Come on, let’s eat your son today, then we will eat my son tomorrow.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. Then the next day I said to her, ‘Kill your son so we can eat him,’ but she has hidden her son.” 30 When the king heard this, he tore his clothes in despair. And as the king walked along the wall, the people could see that he was wearing burlap under his robe next to his skin.
It’s Hard to Imagine…
But this was Typical of During Sieges in the Ancient World:
People Cannibalizing Each Other
Women Killing & Eating Their Own Babies
Things have Gotten So Bad in Samaria…
That Not Even the King has Anything to Offer
He Hears the Woman’s Story & is Overwhelmed with Grief
He Tears His Robes & Reveals that He’s Wearing Sackcloth:
An Outward Sign of Grief & Mourning…
And Often, Repentance
I Believe There’s Some Complex Thoughts/Emotions…
Going on in the King of Israel’s Mind
Let’s Keep Reading to See What I’m Talking about
2 Kings 6:31–33 (NLT)
31 “May God strike me and even kill me if I don’t separate Elisha’s head from his shoulders this very day,” the king vowed. 32 Elisha was sitting in his house with the elders of Israel when the king sent a messenger to summon him. But before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “A murderer has sent a man to cut off my head. When he arrives, shut the door and keep him out. We will soon hear his master’s steps following him.” 33 While Elisha was still saying this, the messenger arrived. And the king said, “All this misery is from the Lord! Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”
The King of Israel is Blaming Elisha for this Horrible Predicament
Why would He Blame Elisha?
Well, Elisha was the One…
Who Told Him to Feed & Release the Aramean Raiders
He Feels that Decision to Listen to Elisha…
Is Now Coming Back to Haunt Him
So He Blames Elisha for Samaria’s Suffering
But Notice the King’s Message to Elisha:
“All this Misery is from the Lord! Why should I Wait for the Lord Any Longer?”
“I Did What You Said!”
“I Obeyed God!”
“I Fed & Released the Aramean Raiders!”
“Then the King Came Right Back & Besieged Our City!”
“People are Starving to Death & Resorting to Cannibalism”
“I’m Mourning with the People!”
“I’m Wearing Sackcloth!”
“I’ve Been Waiting on God to Come & Save Us from this…”
“But He’s Still Not Here!”
“Why should I Wait on Him Any Longer!”
“It’s Time for Me to Take Matters into My Own Hands!”
But Before the King’s Officer can Get Inside to Elisha…
Elisha has a Message for the King
2 Kings 7:1–2 (NLT)
1 Elisha replied, “Listen to this message from the Lord! This is what the Lord says: By this time tomorrow in the markets of Samaria, six quarts of choice flour will cost only one piece of silver, and twelve quarts of barley grain will cost only one piece of silver.” 2 The officer assisting the king said to the man of God, “That couldn’t happen even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven!” But Elisha replied, “You will see it happen with your own eyes, but you won’t be able to eat any of it!”
“God is Going to Bring about an Amazing Reversal Tomorrow”
“Samaria is Going to Go from Starving…”
“To having More Abundance than can Be Imagined!”
We can Look Down on the Officer if We Want to…
But I’d Say Several of Us would have Exact Same Response:
“Even if God Made Windows in Heaven…”
“And Showered Us with Every Blessing Heaven has to Offer…”
“It Still couldn’t Be as Good as You’re Describing”
“It Sure Sounds Nice What You’re Saying…”
“But Not Even God can Do that”
Elisha’s Response was a Grave One:
“Oh, God can Do it, Alright.”
“You’ll See it with Your Own Eyes.”
“But You Won’t Get a Single Bite of it.”
2 Kings 7:3–17 (NLT)
3 Now there were four men with leprosy sitting at the entrance of the city gates. “Why should we sit here waiting to die?” they asked each other. 4 “We will starve if we stay here, but with the famine in the city, we will starve if we go back there. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean army. If they let us live, so much the better. But if they kill us, we would have died anyway.”
5 So at twilight they set out for the camp of the Arameans. But when they came to the edge of the camp, no one was there! 6 For the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the clatter of speeding chariots and the galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army approaching. “The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us!” they cried to one another. 7 So they panicked and ran into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else, as they fled for their lives.
8 When the men with leprosy arrived at the edge of the camp, they went into one tent after another, eating and drinking wine; and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and hid it. 9 Finally, they said to each other, “This is not right. This is a day of good news, and we aren’t sharing it with anyone! If we wait until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us. Come on, let’s go back and tell the people at the palace.”
10 So they went back to the city and told the gatekeepers what had happened. “We went out to the Aramean camp,” they said, “and no one was there! The horses and donkeys were tethered and the tents were all in order, but there wasn’t a single person around!” 11 Then the gatekeepers shouted the news to the people in the palace.
12 The king got out of bed in the middle of the night and told his officers, “I know what has happened. The Arameans know we are starving, so they have left their camp and have hidden in the fields. They are expecting us to leave the city, and then they will take us alive and capture the city.” 13 One of his officers replied, “We had better send out scouts to check into this. Let them take five of the remaining horses. If something happens to them, it will be no worse than if they stay here and die with the rest of us.”
14 So two chariots with horses were prepared, and the king sent scouts to see what had happened to the Aramean army. 15 They went all the way to the Jordan River, following a trail of clothing and equipment that the Arameans had thrown away in their mad rush to escape. The scouts returned and told the king about it.
16 Then the people of Samaria rushed out and plundered the Aramean camp. So it was true that six quarts of choice flour were sold that day for one piece of silver, and twelve quarts of barley grain were sold for one piece of silver, just as the Lord had promised. 17 The king appointed his officer to control the traffic at the gate, but he was knocked down and trampled to death as the people rushed out. So everything happened exactly as the man of God had predicted when the king came to his house.
God Blessed Samaria Just as Elisha had Described:
He Opened Up the Windows of Heaven…
By Running Off Their Oppressors…
And Hand-Delivering Them an Abundance…
Of Everything They could Ever Need
And the Unbelieving Doubter of God Almighty…
Was Trampled at the Gate Before He could Experience the Blessings
Application
Application
One Way or Another…
Unbelief/Lack of Trust Always Leads to Death & Destruction
Unbelief Comes in 2 Packages:
Refusal to Believe
Those Who Disbelieve from the Start
(What We See in the King’s Officer)
Abandonment of Belief
Those Who Give Up Faith…
When Things Don’t Go as They’d Like
(What We See in the King Himself)
The Details Seem to Point to Indicate…
That the King of Israel Believed God would Save Samaria
But He Eventually Gave Up Waiting on God
Why Wait for Someone Who Obviously isn’t Coming?
But God was Coming
The Very Next Day, in Fact
The Message to Us is Obvious:
Don’t Give Up on God
Don’t Stop Waiting on Him
God is Able & Willing to Open the Windows of Heaven…
And Let Blessings Reign Down
But We have to Trust Him
We’ve Got to Keep the Faith
We’ve Got to Stop Doubting…
The Power, Grace, & Generosity of God
We’ll Never Know How Many Amazing Blessings…
We Miss Out On…
Simply Because We Stop:
Believing in God’s Ability to Help
Trusting in God’s Willingness to Help
Waiting for God to Help
We Forfeit So Many Blessings…
When We Stop Believing
My Favorite Part of this Passage is the Part the Lepers Play
In Them We See Such a Beautiful Picture of Evangelism
They were the First to Experience the Wonderful Blessings of God
But Then They Realized:
“This isn’t Right”
“We Can’t Keep this Good News to Ourselves”
“We’ve Got to Tell Everyone Else”
So They Told Others…
Who Told Others
Who Told Others
And the Good News Spread to the Entire City…
So Everyone could Enjoy God’s Amazing Grace
Evangelism/Sharing the Gospel…
Begins with Recognizing…
That the Blessings of God in Christ…
Are Too Good to Keep to Ourselves
May We Come to the Same Conclusion as the Lepers:
“It isn’t Right for Me to Keep this to Myself”
“I’ve Got to Tell Others the Good News of God’s Salvation”