I'm going to ask whoever is running the soundbooth to turn the livestream off for a minute so we can have a family conversation about Sunday night.
Are we good?
On Sunday Night, I had the Schrock family come here and sing. I love the Schrock family. I love them more after Sunday night than I did before Sunday night. I really mean that. They are a truly godly family, and I'm glad to be their friends, I'm glad they are influencing my children.
I have a policy that I don't criticize other churches in town. I'm not going to criticize their music. I'm not going to criticize whatever they are doing. That is between them and the Lord and we have enough battles to face here at Bible Baptist without criticizing everyone else.
I'm glad they are there. I'm glad they have a Christian school where I can send my kids. I think they are doing a fine job at the school.
Of course I don't agree with every decision they make. Of course we are different. Wouldn't it be so boring if everybody was the same?
One of the ways we are different is music. I realized Sunday night that we have different approaches to corporate worship music. While I didn't have a problem with any of the songs that they sung, I didn't care for the accompaniment of the songs.
I didn't know that they would do all of those songs with backing tracks and I didn't know it would be that loud. If I did, I probably would have just had Brother Schrock come here and preach sometime instead of them come and sing. That's on me - I should have asked more questions beforehand.
Let me share with you my take on music and where I want to lead us as a church:
- I don't want our music to be a performance, I want it to be worship and I want it to be congregational.
- Because it is worship, I want to involve the people in the room and not use soundtracks.
- I want the music to be simple. I don't think we need orchestration. I want to hear the voices of the congregation - not a beat on a soundtrack.
When the music is simple and participatory, it helps us all focus on worshiping God together rather than being an audience.
Now other churches may do things differently - you may even prefer things differently and that is ok. But as the pastor, I want to steer this ship in a certain direction and when it comes to music that direction is towards simple, doctrinally rich, congregational worship music.
Because of that, I'm probably not going to be inviting too many groups to come here and just sing and I'm going to say no to any group that wants to use a backing track. In the future, I'm going to ask them about this and it will be a qualifying question that determines whether we book them or not.
So, I love the Shrocks. I love the Haifleys. I'm glad they are here. We just are moving in different directions on this one topic, and that is ok. I want you to know where I stand on it and why.
Now, let's get into our Bible study this evening.
Take your Bibles with me and turn to 2 Kings 4. 2 Kings 4 this evening.
We are going to look at four different miracles tonight. Besides the Lord Jesus Christ - no man was used of God to do more miracles than Elisha. Elijah did 8 miracles in his ministry - remember Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah's spirit. Well, God gave it to him and he did 16 miracles - exactly double Elijah's.
We are going to look at four miracles this evening that have a common theme and that is the theme of God's provision. Now, we are going to skip over some stories that we will come back to in the coming weeks, because those stories stand on their own and these are smaller stories that kind of go together.
Miracle 1: The pots of oil
So are you in 2 Kings 4? Let's start with verses 1-7:
[1] Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. [2] And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house, save a pot of oil. [3] Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few. [4] And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. [5] So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out. [6] And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. [7] Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest. 2 Kings 4:1-7 (KJV)
So remember, there was this thing called "the Sons of the Prophets." It was a kind of Bible School or Bible College, where people who felt the call of God went to prepare in the ministry.
And in this story, a young widow of one of the students at the sons of the prophets school is in trouble and she goes to Elijah for help. She tells him that her husband is dead, that he feared the Lord and that if nothing happens that a creditor is going to take her two sons away from her as slaves.
In Bible times, they had this provision that if you were in deep debt, one of the ways you could pay off your debt is six years of indentured servitude. Even the jews did this. So this lady here is in big debt, and the creditor is going to come and take her sons away from her.
Now, I think it has probably always been true that people in the ministry, especially people young in the ministry or training in the ministry haven't had much. They are living paycheck to paycheck. They are learning to trust God. Imagine being in that situation with a young children. This woman was truly destitute.
And that leads me to my first principle tonight:
God takes care of His servants.
God is a good employer. He takes care of those who work for Him.
I'm reminded of Psalm 37:25:
[!bible] Psalms 37:25 - KJV 25. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
And 1 Peter 5:7:
[!bible] 1 Peter 5:7 - KJV 7. Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
If you work for someone, and they are worth their salt, they are going to take care of you. They are going to look out for you. And we who are God's servants, who are working for Him, have the best insurance policy in the world and an even better retirement. Because we have God watching out for us and an inheritance in heaven where moth and rust doesn't corrupt and where thieves don't break in and steal. An inheritance that "fadeth not away."
And so the first thing we are going to see in this story is that God takes care of His servants. This widow comes to Elisha, to the man of God and explains her predicament and Elisha asks her a question: "Well what do you have?"
She says "I don't have anything, well I do have a little jar of oil."
Olive Oil in Bible times was kind of precious. They used it for anointing. They used it as a kind of skin lotion. They used it for dressing. It was a valuable substance.
It actually kind of still is a valuable substance. A gallon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil costs at least 8 times as much as a gallon of gas. Imagine how much more expensive it was when there was no olive oil factory and no trucks and no Walmart?
So Elisha says "What do you have?" And she said "I just have a little jar of oil" and Elisha said "Let's start there."
God is going to do a miracle using this oil. Now, what is the lesson for us? I think it is this:
God wants us to start with what we have.
A lot people are focused on what they don't have: I don't have money. I don't have children. I don't have a lot of time. But God isn't really interested in what you don't have, God wants to use what you do have.
Even if what you do have isn't much - "little is much when God is in it." Just give what you do have to the Lord and watch Him use that.
If what you have is just a little oil and a little flour, that can have national and eternal impact in God's hands. If what you have is just a few loaves and fishes - God can use that.
Just give the Lord what you have - your talents, your time, your little treasure and trust God to do something with it.
So this woman was instructed by Elisha to go borrow all the pots she could. She had to go through the whole town and borrow everyone's tupperware. And she was told to fill them up with the oil.
So she does this. And miraculously, the oil just kept going. Do you know when it stopped? It stopped when she ran out of pots. If she had gotten more 5 pots, she would have had 5 more pots of oil. If she had borrowed 50 more pots, she would have had 50 more pots of oil.
And so this teaches us another principle:
God limits His blessing by our level of faith.
Listen, God is not limited. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. God has all power. God can provide. The limiting factor in any transaction with God is not God's power but our faith.
If you want little blessings, pray little prayers. If you want God to do little things, attempt little things for God. But if you want God to do big things, than do big things for God. If you want God to give big blessings, than pray big prayers.
She goes to Elisha and says "I did what you told me to do, now I have a bunch of oil" Well Elisha says "go sell the oil, go pay your debt and you and your kids can live on the rest."
I think there is one more little principle we can take from this story and that is...
God is looking for empty vessels.
Sometimes God can't use us because we are already full - we are full of ourselves. But God can fill an empty vessel.
Anyone can be an empty vessel. Just don't be full of yourself and make yourself available to God. The greatest ability God is looking for is availability. So be available to the Lord, be empty and let Him fill you.
That's the first miracle. Let's look down to verse 38 and look at the second miracle...
Miracle 2 - The funky soup
Look at verses 38-41:
[38] And Elisha came again to Gilgal: and there was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him: and he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets. [39] And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not. [40] So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof. [41] But he said, Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot. 2 Kings 4:38-41 (KJV)
So this is another story involving the sons of the prophets. Apparently they were baptists, doing what baptists love to do - having a potluck. And like a lot of potlucks, there was a pot that had some funky stuff in it.
Actually, they all made and ate from one big pot of stew and Elisha told them to go gather ingredients for this stew and some of them found some of what the king James calls "wild gourds." These are probably colocynth - a kind of wild cucumber that grows around the Dead Sea that people use for medicine - but if you consume enough of it, it's poisonous.
Apparently, the chefs weren't too careful and they just cut up these cucumbers and threw them in the stew. Maybe they were all eating it and someone noticed and said "there is death in the pot."
The stew they were eating was filled with this poisonous cucumber. So what does Elisha do?
- Does he stop them from eating? No.
- Does he try to get the cucumbers out? No he deosn't do that either.
Instead he calls for some flour (some meal) and throws that into the pot. Then he says give it to the people and it says "there was no harm in the pot."
Now, I'm a little bit of a cook. Flour is wonderful stuff. Flour is the base ingredient in cookies and cakes and bread and pizza. You need flour to bread and fry things. You can use flour to thicken a gravy. Flour is awesome.
But do you know what flour doesn't do? It doesn't make poisonous stuff not poisonous anymore.
So what is the lesson here? I think it is this:
God's plan for purification and health is addition, not subtraction.
Let me tell you what I mean: There is always going to be a little death in the pot. There is always going to be tares in the wheat. There is always going to be goats in the sheep.
In the church and in life, you just can't get rid of all the bad. It's like the cumbers in the stew - it's too mixed in.
But do you know what you can do? You can add a little bit of the Bread of Life. You can add the flour of the Truth. You can overwhelm the bad with the good.
Spurgeon put it this way:
There is death in the pot; how is the Church to meet it? I believe it is to imitate Elisha. We need not attempt to get the wild gourds out of the pot; they are cut too small, and are too cunningly mixed up; they have entered too closely into the whole mass of teaching to be removed. Who shall extract the leaven from the leavened loaf? What then? We must look to God for help, and use the means indicated here. ‘Bring meal.’ Good wholesome food was cast into the poisonous stuff, and by God’s gracious working it killed the poison; and the Church must cast the blessed gospel of the grace of God into the poisoned pottage, and false doctrine will not be able to destroy men’s souls as it now does.”
So the answer for the errors of our time isn't subtraction, it is addition. We need to preach Christ, we need to preach the Bible and let the Bible do it's work.
Let's look at a third story
Miracle 3 - twenty loaves
Look at verses 42-43:
[42] And there came a man from Baalshalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, Give unto the people, that they may eat. [43] And his servitor said, What, should I set this before an hundred men? He said again, Give the people, that they may eat: for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof. [44] So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the Lord. 2 Kings 4:42-44 (KJV)
So they are gathered around and a man comes in with a gift for the sons of the prophets - some corn and 2o loaves of barley. 20 small barley rolls.
And Elisha says "let's eat." And someone says "hold up Elisha, there are over 100 people here, how are we going to eat?"
We fed about 25 people Sunday night - let me tell you - 20 little dinner rolls wouldn't have cut it. Imagine 4x that many. But Elisha said "they shall eat and shall leave therof."
In other words "they'll eat and they'll be too full to finish." And that is exactly what happened. God multiplied the food.
Of course this is a wonderful precursor to the time when our Lord took 5 loaves and two small fishes, and used them to feed 5,000 men.
So again, the principle for us is...
God can stretch a little into a lot.
God can do great things with a little if a little is all we have. Just bring it to Him. Trust Him.
I'm not sure how this works, but God has a way of stretching things. I can tell you that Amanda and I went through a few years where we had very very little. Audrey was born, we were going through a cancer scare with her, taking regular trips to St. Judas. We were down to one small income and we were in a lot of debt. But we were serving the Lord.
Somehow, during that time, God not only took care of us, but when we came here two years later, we were debt free. I'm not sure how that happened. The numbers don't add up. But God did some stretching.
It's like the children of Israel wandering through the wilderness - one of the promises God gave them is that their shoes and clothes wouldn't wear out. I don't know about you - but I'm lucky to get two years out of shoes, and I'm not marching through the wilderness everyday. But God stretched.
Just trust the Lord, be faithful to Him and He'll take care of you. He'll give you just what you need day by day.
There is one more story for us to look at here and it's found in chapter 6 verses 1-7.
Miracle 4 - the floating axe head
Let's go ahead and read those verses:
[1] And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha, Behold now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us. [2] 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. [3] And one said, Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go. [4] So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood. [5] 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. [6] And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he shewed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim. [7] Therefore said he, Take it up to thee. And he put out his hand, and took it. 2 Kings 6:1-7 (KJV)
I love this story. The school of the prophets is too small. They need to expand. They go to Elisha and he says "go for it." They say "will you come with us" and Elisha says "sure."
So they go down by the river and they are cutting trees down to expand this school. Good old fashioned work.
But there is a problem. As someone is swinging an axe, the head of the axe flies off into the river. And the young preacher boy who was swinging it cries to Elisha and says "Oh no, it was borrowed."
Tools like that would have been very expensive. This man probably didn't have it. It's a muddy river. The axe head seemed lost for good.
And Elisha says "where did it go in?" and the man shows him. So Elisha cuts down a stick and throws it in the water about there and do you know what happens, that axe head floats to the surface.
That's a miracle. Brother Ernie, ever seen a floating axe? That's not how iron and steel tools work.
Now, I love this story for two reasons - two final principles tonight:
First,
God is not bothered by our small problems.
This seems like a very small problem. An axe. This isn't "My kids are going to be slaves." This isn't "We are all poisoned and going to die." This is "oops, I lost a borrowed tool."
But it was worthy of God's attention, because God is not bothered when we bring our cares to Him.
Again, 1 Peter 5:7 says
Casting all your big care upon Him, for He cares about those things.
Is that what it says?
No it says
[!bible] 1 Peter 5:7 - KJV 7. Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
Even small things are worthy of God's attention.
You know, I have two little girls and we pray with them every night, and some of the stuff they pray about is pretty small. They treat a friends cold like the bubonic plague.
But have you ever thought about this: with God, all of our problems are small problems.
If God can speak the world into existence - do you think a few million dollars is a big problem to Him? If God can heal the blind and maim - do you think cancer is a big problem to Him?
All of our problems are small problems to God - He wants us to bring them to Him anyways.
There is one more thing I want you to see here and that is...
God will miraculously make the axe head float, but we still have to fish it out.
You know, I was thinking about this - if God can make an axe head float, then God can make it float through the air and back onto the axe handle - can't he? Both are miracles. Why didn't God do it that way?
I think the answer is that God will work miracles for us - but God wants us to do what we can do. We can fetch a floating axe head - so God will have us do it.
Perhaps God doesn't do a miracle because we aren't willing to do what He's already given us the ability to do. We say "Do a miracle for us God" but we won't get out of the LazYBoy.
I think we need to follow that old Hudson Taylor quote: we need to expect great things from God - but we also need to attempt great things for God.
God will bless us, but He's not going to bless our laziness and unwillingness to act.
