Well, thank you, sister, for sharing. We see not only what God has done, but the method by which He did it is quite a miracle, and we rejoice with you.
And thank you, Ben, for sharing. Let me ask you better—maybe I misunderstood. Did you say there is more interaction between the pupil and the professor? Professor, did you use that? What are you professing?
Before we look at our indispensable principle, I see my friend Steve Ward is here tonight. He is going to discover that I gave him the wrong text to study in advance. So either he is going to have to come back tomorrow, or he is going to have to share with me before I speak tomorrow what light he got on that text.
As we come to the study of God’s Word, there is a principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable. That principle is total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit.
I hope you do not get tired of hearing me say that, because whether you are with me or not, I say that every time I come to the Bible. I need to remember that only God can reveal God. Only the Lord can unveil Himself in this precious Book.
One of the studies we are working on in Newport is through the wonderful Book of Acts. We are up into the teens now in our preparation. We have not taught that far, but I am preparing and going on ahead.
One of the things that gripped my heart is in Acts 16, where Paul received that prayer—the Macedonian prayer. You remember that? The man from Macedonia.
One of the questions I asked was, “Who was that man from Macedonia?” I found out it was Lydia. She is the first one, but I think it was bigger than Lydia. I am sure it was you. I think that is where the gospel started to move west, and that is the man from Macedonia.
Anyway, in connection with Lydia’s salvation, there is a wonderful verse in the Bible. You know, we have been talking about having our eyes opened. But let us say God opens our eyes and we behold the Lord and wonderful truth. What then?
Listen, please, as I read to you Acts 16:14:
And the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things that were spoken by Paul.
He not only has to open my eyes to see, but then He must open my heart to respond to the things that He has shown me.
Will you bow with me as we call upon the Lord to open our eyes and to open our hearts to respond to what He speaks? Let us bow.
Father, we thank You so much that You are the One who does the opening. We ask You again, Lord, to minister Yourself, Your life, through this precious Book.
Show us, in a fresh and living and transforming way, the Lord Jesus in His wonder and in His beauty. We pray, as we hear the truths from Your Word, that Your Holy Spirit would illumine our hearts and then open our hearts to respond.
We want to receive Christ as You propose Him to us. I pray for everyone in this room, and I pray, Lord, that by Your grace, even as we studied this morning, You would feed us and protect us from anything in the stew that is not from You.
Put Your Word in the stew, that we might receive a healthy portion. We thank You, Lord, in advance that You are going to meet with us tonight, because we ask it in the worthy name of our Savior, our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, welcome again. Let me just, by way of a quick review, tell you where we are and where we are heading. We are looking at the wonderful servant of the Lord, Elisha—his life and his ministry.
The approach we have taken is based upon God’s presentation of Elisha in the Bible. He is the one who went to His own, and His own received Him not; the one who wept over Jerusalem; the one who healed the leper; the one who multiplied loaves; the one who raised the dead; the one who through His death brought life to others.
He is the man who looks like Jesus. That is why we are studying the Old Testament—the seed-form illustration of the new-covenant Christian. What Paul is in the New Testament, Elisha is in the Old Testament. He is God’s illustration of what it means to be a person—a man, a woman, a young person—like the Lord Jesus.
The message that Elisha had is the new covenant. All his miracles are miracles of life, miracles of resurrection. Elisha is the man like Jesus, and the message he has is the gospel. We have this in picture form.
In our discussion, we have divided these five sessions this way: the first two sessions looked at the man—the man who looks like Jesus. In the next two sessions, we are looking at the message of the man who looks like Jesus. Lord willing, tomorrow will summarize. God brings the whole thing to a marvelous clincher, and we will look at that in the morning, using Steve Ward’s text that I announced.
In our first two lessons, when we looked at the man, I am just going to run over these principles so you have them again in your mind’s eye. God put His mantle on Elisha when He called him, but it was almost ten years later that the mantle which was on his shoulder was in his hand.
Before the mantle could get from his shoulder to his hand, where he could become a man like Jesus, God had to accomplish certain things in his life. We looked at those three principles.
First, he had to respond to the grace of God. He had to respond in a total, free-will, joyful submission to that call of God. We saw in 1 Kings 19 that he did that.
Then God had to plant in him a hunger, a desire. In those ten years, God so worked in him through His servant Elijah that, at the end, Elijah laid before him a blank check and said, “You can fill it in. Before I leave, what do you want?”
Without hesitation, he said, “A double portion.” You remember, the double portion had to do with the firstborn. It was that desire to have everything God wants to give, so that I might be God’s instrument of manifestation and so the whole world can look at me and know how God wants to meet them, treat them, bless them, and deal with them.
Finally, the last thing God worked in his heart was focus. There are many distractions, but Elijah said, “If you can see me—if you can look beyond the physical into the spiritual realm, stay focused on that realm, and see me when I am taken up—it shall be so.”
God did allow the distractions. The tornado came, and you know how that would cause you to turn your head. Then the fiery chariot came, with the horses in front of them and in between them. But he stayed focused.
When Elijah was caught away, Elisha saw it, because God had worked in him the ability to respond to grace, had planted in his heart a desire to want God’s everything, and had given him a focus to keep his mind and heart on the Lord and on spiritual things.
When that mantle came down, he reached down, and now he becomes a man like Jesus. That was the preparation.
Then, in our second message, we had an overview of the way God has laid out those next four stories. If I actually pick up that mantle, what will my life look like? What will my ministry look like?
Illustrated by the opening of the Jordan River—the first miracle after Elisha had the mantle in his hand—if I am like Jesus, the Lord will be opening the path before me all the days of my life. He is going to open the way, remove the obstacles, and remove the hindrances. That is what the life of the man who looks like Jesus will be.
What will my message be like? It is illustrated by the healing of the water of Jericho. God will use me to bless those who say yes. He will allow me to go to the spring, put in the salt, and watch barrenness become fruit.
But for those who say no, illustrated by the men of Bethel, the same one who brings a blessing will bring a curse. Then God will allow me to be available to all those who need to be restored. Praise God for that ministry.
This morning we began to look at the message—the message of the man of God. I attempted, through the four stories, to show you the chief characteristic of the message of the man who looks like Jesus.
You can forget the ones I do tonight if you remember the one we did this morning, because that is the main one. That is the chief one: our message is a Person.
It is Christ Himself. It is not a philosophy. It is not a doctrine. Even though I love to use the word “principle,” it is not even a principle. It is Him. It is Christ.
He is the oil that we have in our house. What do you have in your house? Life, and life more abundant. He is the One who not only gives life, as He gave that little boy to the woman, but He is the One who sustains that life by the power of the resurrection.
He is the One who feeds the hungry with a living Word from heaven, purifies the whole stew, and provides for those who are hungry in secret places. That is what we looked at this morning.
So the chief characteristic—what is the message like? It is a Person. It is Him. It is the Lord. It is Christ. It is the second Person of the Godhead. It is our Lord Jesus Himself.
This evening, it is going to be my assignment to present other characteristics. The problem, of course, will be not to present them in a way that separates them from the Person who is the central characteristic.
Nothing is gained if you leave this place and say, “I can name five characteristics of the new covenant. I can name six characteristics.” Who cares? You can name four, five, or six characteristics. But if, in seeing those characteristics, God burns in your heart the reality of them and how they relate to Him who is the sum and substance of it all—to Christ—then that message becomes a precious message indeed.
This is the man who looks like Jesus, and this is the message he has embraced, proclaimed, and held forth to bring life and hope to others.
Let me lay before your hearts in advance the four characteristics that we are going to look at in terms of these next four stories.
Once again, I sort of have to apologize every time we get up here, because there is just not enough time. We have to leave so much behind. But if you will be patient with that, I know you have studied, and you are anxious to hear what God has given you and what someone else has seen. There are many precious truths here.
Do not put this section of Scripture away after Joshua. May the Lord help you to get into it and meditate on it. There is so much here.
As I understand it, each of these next four stories gives a truth, which I am calling, for the sake of analysis, a characteristic of the message—a precious truth, a fact.
God gives the truth, and then He applies that truth. He gives an application of that truth. He only gives one application in each story, but there are others. There are unlimited applications.
That is why, when you study the Bible, ask the Lord not merely to help you apply what you read. If you apply what you read, you may have one or two applications. Ask the Lord to show you the principle involved, and then apply the principle. You will have unlimited applications to that principle.
A principle is true in every age, every generation, and every part of the world. It will never change. So ask the Lord to give you the principle, and then get into application.
In case you are planning to fall asleep during this message, let me tell you up front: here is story one, here is the fact, and here is the application. Here is story two, here is the fact, and here is the application. I will give it to you right up front, and then you can check out. I will keep talking and let you know when you can leave.
The first truth is this: What does our message look like? The message of the man of God is a message of pure grace.
That is the first story. There are many ways to illustrate that, but God chooses one: forgiveness of sin, illustrated by the cleansing of Naaman the leper. There are many ways to illustrate the pure grace of God, but He chose this illustration—cleansing, forgiveness of sin.
The second story, the second characteristic, is this: What does our message look like? It is not only pure grace; it is a message that God Himself must do it. It is the power of God.
The Lord is the One who does His work. The Lord’s work is the Lord’s work. The Lord must do His work; we cannot do it.
There are many illustrations in life that show, “He has to do it; I cannot do it.” But the illustration He chooses is Christian service, illustrated by the miracle of the floating axe head.
Our message is not only a message of pure grace and the power of the Lord, with the Spirit of the Lord doing everything. Our message is also a message of revelation.
God has to open it. God has to open our hearts and open our eyes. God has to show us.
There are many ways to illustrate that, but He chooses victory over the enemy as His illustration—victory over the Syrians. It is the story Brother Bill was referring to this morning.
Finally, the last story illustrates the absolute certainty of God’s purposes—the absolute certainty of God’s purposes.
There are many illustrations of that, but He decides to use restoration as His illustration: 2 Kings 8:1-6, the full restoration of the inheritance of the widow and her son.
What is our message? First and foremost, it is Christ. That is the message of the man who looks like Jesus. His message is a Person. It is the Lord.
What does the message look like? It is pure grace. The Lord does it all. It is revelation: it is from Him, and He is the One who opens it up. It is the faithfulness of God: all His purposes are certain, all His purposes are sure, and that which He designs will come to pass. God will bring it to its end.
Perhaps even in this place, somebody needs to know that they can be forgiven tonight. Maybe somebody has become so burdened down in Christian service that they need to know God must do it.
Maybe someone is so overwhelmed by the enemy in their life that they need to have their eyes opened to a few things. Maybe someone is getting discouraged because their path has gone, and they are wondering, “Where is the Lord? Is He still on His throne? Does He still care?”
So may God help us as we look.
Since God has chosen forgiveness to illustrate pure grace, I want to describe His pure grace in terms of the story of Naaman. If you will, turn to 2 Kings 5.
It is not an accident that this is the only story of Elisha mentioned in the New Testament. It is in Luke 4:27. Why does Jesus mention this story about Elisha? Because this miracle is a missionary miracle.
Not every miracle was a missionary miracle, but this one was. Here the Lord, in His mighty power, goes outside the boundaries of Israel and reaches into the heart and land of the Gentile.
The principle is the grace of God—the pure, unadulterated grace of God. That is what we believe. That is what we hold. That is what we preach. That is what we proclaim. That is the message God has given: Christ. Because it is Christ, it is the free grace of God.
One illustration of the grace of God in this story of forgiveness is this: the grace of God always seeks out the sinner—the leper.
The Bible presents Naaman as a Gentile seeker. If he is a Gentile seeker, how is God going to reach him? Skeptics love to ask that question: “What about the heathen? What about those who do not live in a gospel country, where they can hear it on the radio, someone can tell it, or there is a church on every corner?”
What about those in South America, Africa, Australia, or the tribes in New Guinea that have never heard? What about those?
God answers that question. He says, “Anybody who seeks Me is going to find Me.” Anywhere on the earth, there is no excuse. Anybody who seeks Him is going to find Him.
I am not going to get into Romans 1 and all the light of creation, conscience, the Word of God, and all of that. But know this: in every place on the earth where there is a seeker, God will provide a human instrumentality in some way so that that person can come to the Lord.
How did He do it for Naaman? Look at 2 Kings 5:1:
Now Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him the Lord had given victory unto Syria: he was also a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.
Do you notice that expression: “By him the Lord had given victory”? That is an amazing verb. God gave victory to this man, but he did not know it. He did not think it was God. God gave him victory over God’s people, over Israel.
I am sure Naaman became famous. He became a hero in the land because of the victory he had. When he came back, they gave him great honors after that war, and he did not say, “The only reason I got these honors is that God gave me the victory.” He did not have a clue about that.
What did Naaman do when God gave him the victory? Verse 2:
Now the Syrians had gone out in bands, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman’s wife.
That is what happens in war. They take prisoners of war. In this war, God gave them victory. Naaman went up against God’s people, against Israel. They invaded the land and took prisoners of war.
One of the prisoners was this little Israeli girl—maybe eight, nine, or ten years old. They took this little child back.
You say, “What happened to her family?” The Bible does not tell us what happened to her family, but if I were writing the Bible, I could guess. They were probably killed trying to protect that little girl.
If it was my little girl, I would be dead before they took her. If it was your little girl, you would probably be dead before they took that little girl.
He calls attention to this little maiden being taken away as a prisoner of war. You say, “That is the most natural thing in all the world in a time of war.” Yes, but from God’s viewpoint, it is also the most supernaturally natural thing in all the world.
The Lord is behind this, because God looked down from heaven and saw a seeker in Syria. According to Luke, that is why He did it. There were other lepers, but they were not seeking. This one was a seeker, and God knew that.
So He had to send somebody. On the level of earth, and from the standpoint of man, it was a terrible tragedy. “Our baby has been kidnapped. A foreign nation has come in and taken our little girl, and we may never see her again.” Can you imagine the family?
This was not the only one. It is the only one we read about, but others were taken as prisoners of war as well. Yet, if it was a tragedy, it was a missionary tragedy, because the Lord was behind it.
We read in verse 3:
And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy.
Boy, God had really worked in this girl. I do not have time to discuss the girl, but what a heart! If that were me, I would say, “You leper, I am glad you are a leper. I hope you die a leper. You took me out of my mother’s home.”
But this little girl was different. Boy, there was something God did in her heart. This little girl testified. She said to her mistress, “I wish your husband could only go to Israel, because there is a man there just like Jesus, and he could cure him of his leprosy.”
That is the stuff of faith. Do not forget: the only leper up to that time who had been cured was Miriam. She was on brand-new ground. That was cold-blooded faith. What if it did not work? You come back after taking a long trip—how are you going to treat your servant girl who told you that lie?
This little girl was tremendous. That is the grace of God. Usually, thirst goes after water, unless it is in the Lord. That is what John 4 is all about: how water goes after thirst.
He is the living water, and He is the One who seeks out thirst. He saw this man hungry, and because of the testimony of this little girl, Naaman was saved, Israel was called to repentance, the king was made aware of God’s power in Israel, and probably thousands will be in heaven because of this story and the testimony of that little girl.
The grace of God not only initiates, goes first, and seeks out the sinner; the grace of God levels pride to the dust. It brings man down to nothing.
Naaman—look at verse 1—was a proud man, as the world would look at him: captain of a military force, in favor with the king, highly respected as a national hero, brave, a valiant warrior, and probably very wealthy because of the spoils of war.
But in spite of all that power, authority, honor, and wealth, we read, “But he was a leper.” A great shadow falls over his life. All the accomplishments, everything he has, all the honor—grace humbles the proud.
I do not know whether it was humbling for him to hear the word of that little maiden girl, who was his slave. Maybe it was. But he acted on it.
At this point, he does not have a clue about the grace of God. All he knows is, “I have a big need. I am a leper. She says there is hope, and I have not heard anybody else say there is hope. This little girl is giving me hope.”
So we see him show up, but he shows up like a proud man, and he has a great price in his hand. Verse 5 says that he took ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothes. This is a king’s ransom.
This leper goes because he does not know about the grace of God yet. God begins to bring him down, because the grace of God always humbles.
When he arrives at the king’s palace, he learns that the king cannot do anything for him. He is told to go to the prophet’s house. That is sort of humbling.
With his royal entourage, his horses and chariots—plural—he comes. He did not just come by himself. He did not just come with an attendant. There were chariots involved. All these chariots, one after the other, pull up to the prophet’s house.
Did you notice how verse 10 begins?
And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.
The prophet did not even come out himself. He sent a messenger to him. This important man, this great general, this captain of the army, the one who had all this money in his hand to give—that is humbling to this leper.
Then, to cure his leprosy, the messenger says, “Go down to the River Jordan and dip seven times.” Listen to the response of the proud man:
But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and recover the leper.
Are not Abanah and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.
Proud man, proud man. The grace of God humbles us. He uses humble means to reach us. He refuses everything we bring in our hands to pay Him. He does not recognize our importance. It seems as if He calls on us to do unreasonable things.
The grace of God does not come with bells and whistles, signs in the sky, and all that kind of thing. The grace of God waits to meet with a leper.
God has a great salvation for lepers, but He has no salvation for captains. He has a great salvation for lepers, but He has no salvation for generals. The grace of God brings them low and brings them down.
The man came as an important person, but he would not be helped until he was a leper.
Not only does the grace of God seek out the seeker and bring down the proud, but this is the wonderful point: the grace of God pours out His blessings freely on those who will receive it.
Who can read these verses without being moved? Verses 13 and 14:
And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?
Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.
What a word he had been given in verse 10: “Go wash in Jordan seven times. Your flesh will be restored to you.” How simple is that?
I love this. This is our message. It is the grace of God. God will seek you out. God will bring you down. Then God will bless you when you are down. That is our message.
I think it went something like this. The servant says to him, “If he gave you some tough thing to do—if you had to crawl on broken glass in Bermuda shorts for so many miles—you would do it. He just said, ‘Go down and dip seven times.’ Why do you not do it? Just try it. What have you got to lose?”
“All right, all right. I have got to get in that muddy, silty, rushing river. We have better rivers in my land. What am I doing here? The man of God said seven times. Okay, okay.”
I can picture Naaman going down. Now, we do not know what stage the leprosy was in. I have a vivid imagination. I do not think he had a nose and did not have toes—I am kidding. I do not know how advanced it was. Probably not that advanced, because he was still in contact with people.
Later, when Gehazi got leprosy, it said, “The leprosy of Naaman shall cleave unto thee,” and he was white as snow. So probably that was the stage of Naaman’s leprosy. I do not know.
But I picture him going down, dipping underwater all the way down, and then coming all the way back up again, like when you were baptized. “All right. Oh, I do not see any change.”
“The man of God said seven times.” All right, all right. Down he goes again. He comes up. “The man of God said seven times.” Down he goes again, and up he comes the third time.
“This is stupid. This is silly. Why did I let myself be talked into this?” The man of God said seven times, and so he goes down again.
He goes down a sixth time. “This is not going to work.” The man of God said seven times. He goes down the last time, and he comes up.
Do you think there was any shout in the Jordan that day? Can you imagine? He came up, and the Bible says that he was clean. He was clean, and his flesh, verse 14, was restored like the flesh of a little child.
This was no gradual healing. He was not eighty percent cured or ninety percent cured, and then had to get some skin grafts implanted to take care of the rest. It was not like that.
If you get a chance—now, any baby will do, but you will probably want to hold Sarah, my granddaughter. I was holding her the other day when I was studying this. I was just rubbing her leg: flesh of a little child.
This man got so cleansed that he was better off than before he got leprosy. He went down and came back with the flesh of a little child. What a cleansing.
That is the message we have. That is the message we preach. And it is all free.
Verse 15 says:
And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant.
But he said, As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none.
Naaman urged him to take it, but Elisha refused. It is free. That is the grace of God: it is free.
I do not have time now to tell you the story of Elisha’s servant Gehazi. You can read it. He tried to put a price tag on the grace of God, and when he tried to put a price tag on the grace of God, you know what happened to him. It is all written in that chapter, in the last two verses.
When Naaman left Israel, look at verse 17: he had found new ground to stand on, and he wanted to take that ground with him. He took that ground with him.
That is our message. It is the message of the grace of God—the message that God will seek you out, the message that God will bring you down to nothing, and the message that God, no matter how ugly, repulsive, deep the dye, or indelible the stain, will wash you white as snow.
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, come to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.
Do not answer, but does anybody need cleansing tonight? There are other ways God could have illustrated the grace of God, but He wanted to use this illustration.
Come as a leper and leave as a little child. That is what He is inviting you to do.
Well, let us move on to 2 Kings 6.
And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha, Behold now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us.
Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make us a place there, where we may dwell. And he answered, Go ye.
And one said, Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go.
So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood.
But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed.
And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he showed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim.
Therefore said he, Take it up to thee. And he put out his hand, and took it.
The second fact of our message is this: it is a message of the power of God.
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.
That is the message that we preach. It is not in us; it is in the Lord. This message can be illustrated a thousand ways, but He illustrates it with Christian service.
The sons of the prophets are experiencing growing pains. Picture a seminary or Bible school. They are in Bible school, and evidently a lot of people have signed up for the next course.
Someone is teaching apologetics, right, Steve? Steve is going to be teaching apologetics. He has been discussing with me, “Is that a scriptural course I am teaching?” They signed up. They want to enlarge the school. It is a legitimate thing to do: Christian service.
They are given permission to go and enlarge the facility. Picture this service. In the middle of the service, the instrument that was used to perform the service was suddenly irretrievably lost.
The goal was to fell beams, not lose an axe head. Somebody was chopping, and the axe head fell off, went into the Jordan River, and sank.
In the middle of the work, in the middle of the labor, somebody flew off the handle. Something happened, and the instrument that was doing the service was lost.
Do not read that “la, la, la,” because I tell you, thousands and thousands of Christians go out to serve the Lord, and in the middle of the work, those who are serving the Lord find themselves in the bottom of the Jordan River and wonder, “What in the world happened?”
I know a little about that. That happened to me. In 1965, I got so involved in ministry and so involved in the work of the Lord that when that axe head fell off, I was so stupid, I started chopping with the handle. I kept serving until God let me know that it was all in vain.
Anyway, it is a beautiful picture. They bring the man of God into the picture in verse 6, and he says, “Cut off a branch—a living branch, not a dead stick, a living branch—and throw it in.”
When the branch was thrown in, almost like a magnet, the iron swam. That axe head came right up to the branch that was floating on the top.
This is all Old Testament. This is all seed form. But it is the secret of our message. “Who is the branch?”
Oh, man. Read Zechariah 6:12:
Behold the man whose name is the Branch; and He shall grow up out of His place, and He shall build the temple of the Lord.
The man whose name is the Branch. That is the secret of Christian service: I cannot do it. There has to be something more than nature.
When I identify with the living Branch, a resurrection takes place. The axe head is brought up again, and now the same axe head that sank can get involved in the service. They continued the Christian service.
That is our message: you cannot do it. He has to do it. How will He do it? He will do it by identification with the living Branch. He will raise you up, and you will not do it in your own strength or power.
The third characteristic is illustrated by 2 Kings 6:8 through chapter 7. The illustration is victory; the fact is revelation. God has to open it to us.
All the way through the record, Elisha seems to have lived by revelation. He just seemed to have an in with God. He knew what was going on at all times. He always knew God’s heart. He knew what to do.
A situation would come up, and he would say, “Bring me some salt. Dig a trench. Cut a limb off. Gather vessels, not a few. Bring me some meal. Put some meal in there. Shoot an arrow. Strike the ground.” He always knew what to do.
In the whole record, there is only one place where he did not know what was happening, and he was shocked when it happened. He had such communication with God that he knew everything that was going on.
Remember when the widow came after her son died? In 2 Kings 4:27, he said:
Let her alone; for her soul is vexed within her: and the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me.
Why is that verse so important? Because he was shocked. “That is not like God. I do not know what is going on.” He always knew what was going on. It is revelation.
In the story before us, Elisha continues to hear from God. Verse 12 of chapter 6 says:
And one of his servants said, None, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber.
The enemy was making plans in the Oval Office, and while they were in the Oval Office, Elisha was hearing from God. He would tell the king of Israel, “Here is the plan,” and Israel would make plans to thwart the other plan.
Finally, the enemy said, “We have a spy here somewhere. Somebody is leaking the information. Who is leaking it?” One of them said, “No, nobody is leaking it. That guy in Israel who looks like Jesus—he knows what you say in your bedroom. He is the one getting that information.”
That is the point of the story: revelation. Elisha was hearing from God.
The first illustration is that God opens His servant’s eyes so that he will know he is on the winning side. You need a revelation to understand that you are on the winning side. I need a revelation to understand that I am on the winning side.
When the enemy surrounded the prophet to kill him, Elisha’s attendant was filled with fear. In verse 16, Elisha answered:
Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
Then Elisha prayed:
Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see.
And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes:
And he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
It seems as if Elisha was always alive to two worlds. Some people think that ever since Elijah was caught up, and Elisha first saw the horses and chariots, he never stopped seeing them. He continually was aware of that spiritual world.
Elisha had two options. The man said, “Oh, what are we going to do? We are surrounded.” Elisha could have said, “God has shown me something, and you ought to see what I am seeing. Let me explain it.”
He could have said, “Over there on the top of those trees, I see about ten thousand chariots of fire. On those chariots of fire are the angels of God. Over there I see some more chariots.” But the servant would have said, “I see nothing. I see the enemy, and they are surrounding us.”
Elisha could have tried to explain what he was seeing, or he could have gone the easy route and said, “Lord, open his eyes.” That is a lot easier than trying to explain the whole thing.
In a moment of time, if God gives a revelation, you do not have to do a lot of explaining. I used to do it the same way, Phil, until I understood God’s heart on that.
I used to think, “Oh, I have seen a lot from the Lord. He has shown me wonderful things. How am I going to let them know what I am seeing? I will have to give them a clear outline, use vivid illustrations, and quote believable sources.”
I hope I still do that, but that is not how you are going to see. I found a shortcut:
Lord, open their eyes, that they can see.
That is the way to do it. It is a lot easier to pray than it is to preach. It is a lot easier to ask the Lord to open your eyes, and if He begins to answer that prayer, then your heart sees.
That is what happened to this servant. He began to see. Verse 17: “Open his eyes.”
Did you notice? I almost had to laugh—in fact, I did laugh out loud—as I was meditating on this. My wife came to see what was so funny. God has a sense of humor.
Did you notice that this angelic army did not do anything?
Greater are those who are with you than those who are with the world. I suppose the servant thought, “Good. Let us see them fight now.” They did not lift one finger to do one thing. They did not shoot one single arrow. They were just there.
His eyes were opened, and he saw them. What did they do? They were just there. He looked up and saw this tremendous army, but they were not doing anything.
You say, “Well, did they not do something later?” Yes, they just made noise. It sounded like another army. They were just flapping their wings. They did nothing. They said, “Boo,” and the enemy scattered. But they did not fight.
The way the victory was won, you did not need angels to do it. When Elisha prayed that they would be blind, brought them in, and sent them back with a banquet, you did not need angels for that.
What is that all about? “Open his eyes that he might see.” See what? A bunch of angels that do nothing except stand there.
Oh, I will tell you, it is very instructive to me. God help us. These angels that they saw—the host of the Lord—and the Lord, whose host it is.
The point is this: the servant had fear in his heart. He was surrounded by a human army, and he needed to see that he was on the winning side. Not that they would fight, but that they could fight.
When he saw that they could fight, he knew he was on the winning side. There was no way that army could handle that army. It did not matter that they did not fight. If it was God’s will that they fought, they would.
He found peace just in knowing that it was possible—that God was in control. He did not need deliverance. He needed to know that God could deliver, if it was His will, His pleasure, and His purpose.
It is very much like Stephen when he was stoned. Recently I studied Stephen and the stoning of Stephen. I love the way the Bible words it: he looked up to heaven and saw Him standing.
You know how you say, “What are You just standing around for? Do something. He is getting stoned, and You are standing there.” Why did that bring peace to him?
When Stephen saw the Lord standing, he knew who was in control. If the Lord wanted to, He could have stopped it. Stephen found rest in knowing that He was standing there, that He was there, and that the armies of the Lord were all around.
If God wanted them to, it would be over in a minute. Whether He does it or not, I know He can deliver. Whether He does it is up to Him, but I need to know He can.
Will He provide? I need to know He can provide. Will He heal me? I need to know He can heal me. Once I know He can, I am at rest, because then if He wants to, He will.
Will He rescue me? I need to know He can. God had to open the servant’s eyes to that. That is the first picture of the opening of the eyes.
If you are going to enjoy victory, if I am going to enjoy victory, I need to know that I am on the winning side.
There is a second illustration of eye-opening in 2 Kings 6 and 7. If you read the record, I will just sort of tell it to you. The war got pretty bad. They laid siege around the capital, and Samaria was besieged by this enemy army.
How long it lasted, we do not know. But it was long enough for there to be a tremendous famine. They could not get in or out. It was a long time.
Verse 25 of chapter 6 tells how bad it was. It cost eighty shekels of silver to buy the meat from a donkey’s head. That is not much meat, and that is a lot of money.
Later, it cost five shekels of silver to buy two quarts of dove’s dung. That is what they were eating. You say, “That is terrible to eat that.” Well, read down in the chapter, verses 28 and 29: they started eating their children.
We just sort of read this, “La, la, la.” This was a terrible situation.
Then chapter 7 describes the four lepers. They were dying outside the wall, and they made this choice in 2 Kings 7:3:
And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die?
If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also.
Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.
God had to open their eyes too. They did not have to see that they were on the winning team. They had to see something else: that the battle was already finished.
That is what God showed them: the battle was already done. Look at 2 Kings 7:8:
And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went and hid it; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went and hid it.
What is that all about? It is a picture of those who are on the verge of a great discovery. God is opening their eyes to the fact that the enemy has already been dealt with, the enemy has already been finished, the war is done, and it is all over—but they do not know it.
They think the enemy is hiding behind a tree or hiding in a cave. They see all the spoil, but they are afraid to go near it. They sneak into a tent, look around, hear a noise, and jump back.
They go back in. There is nobody around. God scared them away. They heard one “boo,” and they were gone. They grab a piece of bread, run out, hide behind the trees, eat it, take some gold, and hide it.
They sneak around again. After a while they are saying, “You know, I do not think there is anybody around here.” They get a little bolder, go into the next tent, and say, “Hey, come over here. You cannot believe what I just found!”
They had all this stuff. I am not going to get into how God began to work in their hearts from that discovery, or how they had to share it with the brothers and sisters at home.
But God began to open their eyes to the fact that the war was done and everything was theirs for the taking. That is a revelation of the Lord. That is our message.
You are on the winning team. May God open your eyes to see it. The battle is done. The spoil is yours. Take it. We need boldness to get that, but God has to open our eyes in order for us to see that.
There is one other eye-opening illustration, and then we will wrap that up. When the prophet announced the blessing of God, he said, “God is able to change this situation.”
Do not forget: they were eating their children. They were eating dove’s dung. They were spending a fortune to get a little piece of meat off a donkey’s head. There was famine and poverty.
God gave a word. In 2 Kings 7:2, the royal officer on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God:
Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be?
Elisha said, “Tomorrow morning there is going to be so much bounty that there is going to be a great sale at the gate. What you used to spend a fortune on, now you can get for almost nothing.”
The man had unbelief. He said, “If God were to open the windows of heaven right now and drop everything out of heaven, that cannot happen overnight.”
God says, “I have to open your eyes so that you can see that your situation, no matter how bad it is, can be changed overnight. It can be changed now. You need God’s eyes to see that.”
Because of unbelief, Elisha told him, “You will see others eat it, but you yourself will not eat it.” When the sale opened, everybody got so excited about the sale that they came in and trampled this man, and he died. He saw it, but he could not eat it.
What is my message? What is your message? What is the message of Elisha, the man who looks like Jesus? Oh, it is Christ. That is our message.
Break it down. What is it? It is the pure grace of God. It is free. God will give it all for free, especially forgiveness. It is all for free.
What is the message? Our message is that we cannot do it; He does it—especially in Christian service. He will raise us, and then we will be able to minister unto Him.
What is the message? God opens your eyes so that you can see these things. That is our message. God has to show you.
Especially in victory, you need to know that you are on the winning team. You need to know that the battle is done. It is over. It is yours for the taking. You need God to open your eyes so that you can see your situation can be changed overnight.
If you do not believe it, you will see it in others, but you will not experience it. Oh, may God help us with these things. That is the message of the man of God.
Let me very briefly, in closing, make a comment on this fourth story. I know I have kept you a while. You have been very patient, and I appreciate that.
I told you the principle of the last story was the certainty of God’s purposes—the faithfulness of God.
God is never taken by surprise. There are no emergencies with Him. He does not fret over anything going on in your life or mine. He is not anxious about anything. He is always moving toward His high purpose.
The illustration of this is the restoration in 2 Kings 8:1-6 of the widow and her son.
When we are talking about this man, Elisha, and those who respond to his message, we are talking about the remnant. We are talking about those who are really sold out, who are seeing the Lord and wanting Him.
They are a weird bunch. They are not like the average churchgoing kind of people. They are different. If you are in that group, you are part of that weird bunch.
This woman, because God had given her a supernatural son and had supernaturally raised that son from the dead, now had him twice—once by birth and once by resurrection. She became one of those crazy people. She had tasted the goodness of the Lord.
The story begins with a warning from the man of God about a seven-year famine that was going to take place in Israel. She was given direction by the Lord that probably would not be accepted in any church.
It was a weird direction. To all onlookers, they would say, “That is not from God. That is weird. I cannot believe you think that is from the Lord.”
Here is the direction she received in 2 Kings 8:1:
Arise, and go thou and thine household, and sojourn wheresoever thou canst sojourn: for the Lord hath called for a famine; and it shall also come upon the land seven years.
Do you realize what that sounded like? Picture it in your own ears and in the ears of others: “Get up. Leave everything. Go anywhere.” He did not tell her where to go.
Get up, leave everything, go anywhere, and do not come back for seven years.
She had no other direction, so in verse 3 she goes to the land of the Philistines. The land of the Philistines! People would say, “That is not God’s will. How in the world can you do that? It is crazy.”
Get up, leave everything, go anywhere, and do not come back for seven years. She had no other direction, so she went to the land of the Philistines.
Watch the Lord in this. This woman and her son had experienced the grace of the Lord. They had seen God take care of them before, and now she was sensitive to obey that weird word.
There was a terrible famine among the people of God. Is God going to feed her? Sure He is. She is one of His.
Even in the land of the Philistines? Oh, yes. He is going to take care of her and watch over her.
At the end of the famine, at the end of the seven years, she comes back to her inheritance and finds out somebody has moved into her house, taken over her farm, taken over the land, and will not get out. They have usurped the whole property.
But the Lord is her Keeper. The Lord is the One watching over her. This is such an amazing thing. Just think of the logistics of this.
Verse 3 says that at the end of seven years, the woman returned from the land of the Philistines and went to appeal to the king for her house and field.
At that very moment, the king was talking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, “Please relate to me the great things Elisha has done.”
As Gehazi was relating to the king how Elisha had restored the life of the one who was dead, behold, the woman whose son Elisha had restored to life appealed to the king for her house and her field.
Gehazi said, “My lord, O king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life.”
She walked in at that moment. They were talking about her after seven years. Gehazi was sitting down and discussing it, saying, “Oh, I was there. You should have seen it. There was this kid, this little baby, and he was dead. I laid him up. I did it myself. I put him on the bed. He was dead.”
“I went up and talked to him. It did not work. Then God did a wonderful thing.” All of a sudden, he got to the door, and there they were. Gehazi said, “Ask them. Ask them.”
The king asked her to tell the story, and she began to pour out her heart and tell the same story. The Bible says the king restored everything.
He not only gave it all back, but everything that land had produced since the day she left was also returned to her. She became a wealthy woman.
You know why? Because God watches over His children and takes care of them. He does not leave an unfinished symphony. He always completes His purpose, and He knows what He is doing.
That is our message. The Lord is with you. He will follow you. He will go with you. He is taking care of it. He is engineering things, controlling things, protecting, and keeping. That is our message.
What is our message? It is Jesus. What is our message? It is the grace of God—the pure grace of God.
What is our message? It is the power of God. What is our message? It is the light of God. He is the One who illumines us.
What is our message? It is the keeping power of God. It is Him. It is Him. It is Him. It is Him.
Now we get ready to close. Have you heard our message?
Is there some leper here? I am serious. You say, “Nobody knows how dirty my heart is.” I promise you, this is our message: you can be clean tonight.
Do not come to Joshua and go out with a dirty heart. This is where the Lord will meet you. He will wash you whiter than snow. It does not matter what you have been in. It does not matter how messed up you are. Come as a leper, and He will cleanse you.
Have you been tired of serving the Lord in your own strength? Do you need something more than nature can give?
Let me introduce you to the Branch. Let Him raise you up, and in union with Him, go back out and serve the Lord. That is what He wants to do.
Has the enemy got you? May God open your eyes. May God open your eyes.
May you see that you are on the winning team. We win, we win, hallelujah, we win. I read the back of the Book, and we win.
You are on the winning team. The battle is over. It is finished. He can change your situation overnight. Believe it. Believe it.
You say, “Yes, but I have been on some crazy path, and I am not sure. I had such vague words. I left this, and I do not know what is going to happen back here.”
He is in charge of that. He is taking care of that. He is the God who keeps. He is the God who keeps. That is our message.
I am going to ask you to bow with me. Let us pray together and ask the Lord to work these things in our hearts.
Our Father, we thank You so much for the message of the new covenant, for the message of the grace—the pure grace—of God; for the message that it is not us, but You who do the work.
We thank You for the message that You open our eyes and our understanding to see Your great truths, and for the message that You will never leave us or forsake us, but You will be with us and faithfully perform all of Your will, conforming us to the Lord Jesus.
Thank You for these truths. Lord, if there is someone in need, we ask You that they might be enabled, as we prayed when we began, to have their hearts opened to respond.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I do need to say this, because I do not want you to leave with a general blessing and unclenched truth in your heart.
If there is somebody who has a need and needs to get together with a brother, a sister, or an elder and pray about this forgiveness—or whatever it is—you can do it right there in your heart and in your seat. There is no question about that.
But if it would help you to meet with somebody, there are men here who are more than willing to sit down with you and settle these issues.
Do not come to Joshua and leave with these things unsettled. The Lord has come here to meet you. I trust you have come here to meet the Lord. Thank you.