Sermon Tone Analysis

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FAITH IN THE FUTURE \\ /2 Kings 7:1-16/
/ /
*INTRODUCTION: *As I prepared the last few weeks on what I was going to talk about this morning I struggled over many topics and many passages of scripture.
Bryan gave me the option of just spending the time sharing what we did in Honduras, but I did not feel that God was calling me to only share about my family and our trip.
I did, however, have a very important topic thrust upon me when our pastor at King’s Baptist Church tendered his resignation on Mother’s day.
For most in the church this came as quite a shock and I would wager a guess that most are in a state of fear and anxiety for the future of our church.
But we are not alone:
/Illustration: /The University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research took a poll.
They wanted to find out how people viewed the future.
It is interesting to note that only 1 out of 5 people felt hopeful for the future.
Now that is a lot of miserable people if they have no hope for the future.
Four out of Five people confessed that they were not optimistic.
We live in a sad time.
We look at our economic trends and we see them in a state of decline, the housing market leave a lot to be desired, and gas is $4.00 per gallon or more.
We are still engaged in a war that seems to go on forever, terror ensues, and health fades, family members struggle with death, disease, drugs, and divorce.
And we wonder why 4 out of 5 people feel they have no hope for their future.
The main reason we feel there is no hope for the future is the fear of the unknown.
As Christians, we should be able to take a poll and come up with 5 out of 5 people who have a hope for the future because we have the promise and the grace and hope of Christ that there will be something better to come for our future and that what we have here on earth is only temporary.
But, Christians still struggle with the immediate future.
As we come to 2 Kings 7 we find four men who also struggled with their immediate future.
They had a choice to either go back, to stay where they were, or to go forward.
These men had to struggle with the fear that each option brought them.
But as we read this passage of scripture I want you to ask the question:
*Proposition: */How would the Lord have you respond to the future that he has for each of you?
Today we will discover three principles in how to do this./
2 Kings 7:1-16 (ESV) Says:
*Elisha Promises Food*
*7 *But Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord: thus says the Lord, Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.”
*2 *Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, “If the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?”
But he said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”
*The Syrians Flee*
*3 *Now there were four men who were lepers at the entrance to the gate.
And they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die?
*4 *If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there.
And if we sit here, we die also.
So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians.
If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die.”
*5 *So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians.
But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there.
*6 *For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, 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 Egypt to come against us.”
*7 *So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives.
*8 *And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them.
Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them.
*9 *Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right.
This day is a day of good news.
If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us.
Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king’s household.”
*10 *So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.”
*11 *Then the gatekeepers called out, and it was told within the king’s household.
*12 *And the king rose in the night and said to his servants, “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us.
They know that we are hungry.
Therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.’
” *13 *And one of his servants said, “Let some men take five of the remaining horses, seeing that those who are left here will fare like the whole multitude of Israel who have already perished.
Let us send and see.” *14 *So they took two horsemen, and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying, “Go and see.” *15 *So they went after them as far as the Jordan, and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipment that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste.
And the messengers returned and told the king.
*16 *Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians.
So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord.[i]
The situation in Israel was dire.
The Syrians had placed the city under siege.
You see, in the ancient world, they did not have the protection that we have today.
They were not surrounded on the east and the west by great oceans.
They did not have good neighbors to the north and the south.
They did not have a missile defense system or NORAD or a great Army like we do to defend the borders.
The primary line of defense that a city had would be a great wall that was built around the city.
These walls were massive and would allow for heavy fortification and would provide a great protection against warring enemies.
They could be staffed with militia to help protect those within the walls
For the opposing armies to attack such a wall the only real strategy was to besiege the city and allow nothing to enter or to leave the city.
It then became a waiting game to see who would crack first.
Those within the walls would begin to run out of food.
It’s not like you could just run down to the local Wal-Mart and pick up supplies.
Even if you could, there would be no trucks to re-supply Wal-Mart.
Eventually people would have to choose to either starve to death, or surrender and possibly die.
The situation for Israel had become desperate.
If we were to read chapter 6 we would read of a story of two women who made an agreement to offer their sons as a sacrifice to their own hunger.
They actually boiled one of the children and ate him to satisfy their own hunger.
The following day when it was the second woman’s time to offer her child, she had hidden him away.
The women who had eaten her own child the day before cried out to the king to rectify this injustice.
The King seeing the desperation of the people to sink so low as to resort to cannibalism tore his clothes covered himself in sackcloth and mourned.
We can conclude that Israel was starving.
Verse 13 alludes that many in Israel had already perished.
There was no food.
The livestock was certainly gone.
Their water supply probably was running out and they were dying.
But then strangely, the narrative changes.
It begins to focus not on the King, not on the hunger, not on the desperation, but on four lepers who were at the city gate.
These four men would have been seen as outcasts.
Now leprosy has been misunderstood over time.
It is often thought of as highly contagious and in most circumstances it is not contagious at all.
The biblical version of leprosy appeared to be no more than psoriasis of the skin that would turn the skin white and appear infectious.
There were no limbs falling off as many today believe, but because of their differences, many people of ancient Israel believed that leprosy was a direct punishment for some sin.
But, because of there differences in appearance, lepers were seen as ceremonially unclean which is why they were at the gate of the city and not inside.
These four men could not go inside the city because they were ceremonial unclean, they could not stay where they were because of the lack of food, and they did not feel they could go out because they were surrounded by the Syrians.
They had no where to go.
So the four of the are discussing what they are going to do and what they do has much to say about how we should go forward in the future, because what they do is quite profound and I think it has significant implications for us.
*Transitional Sentence: *What we learn first is if we are to move forward in faith, we cannot stay where we are.
*I.       **DON’T  STAY WHERE YOU ARE (vv.
3-4)*
*A.    **Explanation*
These lepers have a decision to make.
One of them says we cannot go into the city.
There is already starvation in the city if we go there we are going to die.
Then he says we cannot just stay here or we will die also which brings him to the only logical choice, we have to go forward.
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