Strange Desperation

Series: Stranger Kings 2

Stranger Kings 2

“Strange Desperation”

 

 

I am going to need a volunteer child/parent combo who would like to put together a kite and then try to fly it in a little while.

 

We have spent the summer looking into the “strange” life/events of the prophet, Elisha.

  • And a common theme throughout the stories has been desperate circumstances followed by strange solutions that point to God.
  • People get into desperate times and God uses the prophet Elisha, in albeit strange ways, to act and reveal himself as the covenant God of Israel at work in their community.
  • And in the end, we have been left with a sense of, “Okay, that was out of the ordinary, but I can connect the dots, and see what God was doing there.”

 

But what happens when desperate circumstances take a person’s faith to its breaking point?

  • Many of us have been there and most, if not all of, will probably find ourselves there at some point in life.
  • That feeling/thought that you simply can’t go on?
  • Ever felt like you can’t trust God any longer?
  • Ever felt like you can’t wait a minute longer for God to do something?
  • That’s the scene we find in 2 Kings 6 this morning.
  • It’s a true story filled with despair, heartache, depravity, horror and death.
  • In fact, God’s people are in such a desperate situation, that the human-landscape becomes practically unrecognizable.
  • But it’s also a story of God’s faithfulness, even when we are at our worst.
  • So if you’re ever faced with difficulties that stretch your faith to breaking point then the lows and highs of this story are for us.

 

Now, full disclosure to parents, parts of this story aren’t the most family-friendly … and that’s putting it mildly.

  • So if you want to send your kids upstairs, it’s okay with Jenna.
  • Let’s turn to 2 Kings 6 and parents, take a quick scan down to vv. 28-30 and decide if your kids should head upstairs.

 

 

 

 

 

2 Kings 6:24 – 7:20

24 Sometime later, however, King Ben-hadad of Aram mustered his entire army (again) 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.

 

  • So these are desperate times = not even supposed to eat the unclean donkey and here it talks about even eating the head
  • As for “dove’s dung,” it’s probably slang for a type of small grain or some type of not-so-great food i.e. modern-day parallels = grub (not the crawling thing), doggie bag?

 

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?”

 

  • Parents, cover your children’s ears.

 

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…

 

  • You think! But this hideous behavior in time of war/siege is predicted in Deut. 28:55 and Ezekiel 5:10.
  • In Deut. 28:54 & 56 it says “that most tenderhearted man … the most tender and delicate woman” … will do this because they have rebelled against God.
  • In Ezekiel 5:10, we have the same judgment being prophesied to those who walk away from God.
  • Now, this is not God saying that’s what he wants to happen.
  • This is God saying that when you turn away from me, I can’t protect you from the depths of your human depravity, which is so ugly that you will literally devour one another.
  • And here, in the life of Elisha, we actually see this happening!

 

  • Samaria is under siege as the king of Aram declares war and surrounds the city … instead of a full-frontal attack, they use starvation.
  • No supplies get in, and no one gets out.
  • Food eventually becomes scarce and the people can only hold on for so long before things get desperate.
  • And when all natural support is cut off, people move from desperation to self-preservation, which is exactly what was happening and the king new it.
  • He had nothing left for his people … it was at the point where it was God or nothing?
  • Imagine the pressure and strain of these people … they are starting to live beyond their breaking point.
  • And then the king hears something that pushes him past his breaking point.
  • In what is probably the bleakest and most horrific scene in the Old Testament, the king hears that this woman has done the unthinkable without remorse … she is in full-fledged self-preservation mode.

 

  • I like how Bruxy Cavey describes this human state when/if we loose our faith in God.
    • Bruxy Cavey, Reunion: The good news of Jesus for seekers, saints and sinners (p. 29-30)(book on screen)

 

 

Call up volunteer to fly the kite.

  • What two things will this kite need to fly?
    • Needs wind
    • Needs to be connected to something (you)
  • Let’s see if we can get this thing to fly
    • The kite seems to want to go … but what happens if the kite breaks loose and gets free? (cut with scissor)
      • It crashes
    • Hand out rest of kites.

 

 

 

 

  • Friends, this is where we find the king, in middle of a catastrophic situation…
    • Does draw closer to God?
    • No, he cuts the line all together, takes matters into his own hands and initiates the “blame game”.

 

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 Now 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 breaking point has come for the king and he swears that it will cost Elisha his life!
  • Now, we may have to read a little between the lines here.
  • If you recall the previous Aramean attacks on the Israelites (2 Kings 6), Elisha had been an early warning system for the king and warned him in advance.
  • It’s probably the same scenario here.
  • Elisha probably told the king that they would be tested but that the Lord would deliver them … and that they should wait for God’s help.
  • But the king won’t wait any longer … he has waited … he has worn his sackcloth in a sign of humility before God … and nothing … no answer … no sign of help.
  • So he calculates the damage done to his authority and he blames Elisha because Elisha is the one who counselled him earlier not to kill the Aramean army (2 Kings 6:21-23) when he had the chance.
  • Would killing Elisha end the war and starvation?
  • No, but it might buy the king more time.
  • So, “Off with Elisha’s head,” the king says. “I’m not waiting one minute more… this disaster is from the Lord! You lied to me Elisha.”

 

  • Have you ever got to that point? Where you decided that you needed to make sense of desperate times.
  • The king blamed God and by extension Elisha, their trouble.
  • Have you ever got to the point where you have decided that you can’t wait any longer and that you have to act?
  • You have been waiting on God … praying … reading the Bible looking for an answer … and all you’ve got is silence.
  • Maybe you’ve had a promise from God earlier in your life and now years have passed and you feel like you should take matters into your own hands to try bring about an answer?
  • Well, if that is you, you are not alone … the king and the woman who cannibalized her son are with you in the need to take matters into your own hands.
  • Sorry to associate us with such infamous company.
  • But if we honestly examine ourselves, we all have that breaking point in us where we determine that we can/need/will do better than God.
  • And we choose to break away like that kite that Bruxy Cavey described, because we think our way is better.
  • And what does God do when we make that break from him?

 

 

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.” 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!”

 

  • Elisha, unfazed that the king wants his head, responds by prophesying that within 24 hours the siege would be over and there would be plenty to eat!
  • Two things strike me about God’s timing: God responds even when human faith was gone, when hope had dried up, when things in the natural where at their worst/darkest.
  • And second, God is not restricted by time.
  • Now, the officer thinks he is and openly states as much.
  • And his lack of faith in God’s ability to have mercy and do the miraculous earns him an immediate response– “You will see it, but you won’t participate in it!”

 

  • When we have real challenges in life, how patient and trusting are we?
  • Perseverance is not a word that we use very much any more to describe our society and ourselves.
  • But friends, don’t give up:

James 1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 

 

Romans 5:3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame.

 

  • That’s a HOPE based upon the unchanging nature, promises and faithfulness of God.
  • Don’t be like the officer who just can’t see how God could or would bring deliverance.
  • He doubted God’s ability, God’s willingness and God’s promise.
  • Beware of the doubt that lies within your old self/depraved human nature … don’t kid yourself, it’s there and it can easily come to the surface.
  • Always remember, as we are about to see in this story, that God is very, very, resourceful! Nothing is impossible for him!

 

 

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. “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.”

 

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! 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. So they panicked and ran into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else, as they fled for their lives.

 

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.

 

  • Remember, when God was going to bring victory over Jericho, He got the people to march for 7 days and blow horns.
  • Remember, that God also overcame 120,000 Midianites by getting Gideon and his 300 men to shine their lights and blow their trumpets.
  • And here, when all things seem lost, he uses 4 lepers and some spooky sounds to take out an entire army that has been winning the war with ease.
  • God does the impossible … and as Pastor Rick Warren is fond of saying, “God always uses imperfect people, in imperfect situations, to accomplish his perfect will.”
  • God always make a way!
    • Proverbs 19:21 says, “You can make many plans, but the LORD’s purpose will prevail.”

 

  • Now the lepers didn’t know they were doing God’s work.
  • They didn’t they know that they were in the centre of His will, being lead by God as His means of bringing food and deliverance to the whole region of Samaria.
  • But they were … God was using them.

 

 

Finally, the lepers 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/Elisha had predicted when the king came to his house. 18 The man of God had said to the king, “By this time tomorrow in the markets of Samaria, six quarts of choice flour will cost one piece of silver, and twelve quarts of barley grain will cost one piece of silver.”

 

19 The king’s officer had replied, “That couldn’t happen even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven!” And the man of God had said, “You will see it happen with your own eyes, but you won’t be able to eat any of it!” 20 And so it was, for the people trampled him to death at the gate!

 

  • The last thing that I’ll draw out of this story is the response of the lepers to this overwhelming blessing of God.
  • Here they are, gorging on food, trying on clothes, hiding their loot and suddenly a thought comes into their mind… “this isn’t right … this isn’t just for me!” 

 

  • You may currently be in the middle of a challenge where your faith is under pressure and you are waiting for God.
  • Or you may have already experienced God’s faithfulness and deliverance like the lepers did…

 

  • Whether you are in the midst of it … or have come out on the other side … share your story!
  • Share what God has done for you!
  • Let’s learn from the lepers … they came to realize that it wasn’t so much about just them … there were others who needed to hear what God’s doing in our lives.

 

In the last 8.5 years, God has faithfully provided us with this space to gather as a worshiping community.

  • This is our last Sunday here at the LEC.
  • Is there anyone here today who made the move from RE Mountain Secondary to this space?
  • Our family left JRCC to go pastor in another church before the move here to the LEC, but I have had the privilege of hearing some of your stories, both from a personal and a community perspective, of God’s faithfulness in these years.
  • Last week we signalled that, we wanted you to come with a brief story to share and that we’d spend a few minutes encouraging each other and celebrating what God has done.

 What better way to say thank you to God for his faithfulness to us than by sharing some of those stories for his glory.

 

We all have a breaking point where we decide we can no longer trust God and need to take matters into our own hands. What does that extreme desperation look like and how does God fit?

Speaker: Wally Nickel

August 26, 2018
2 Kings 6:24-7:20

Wally Nickel

Transitional Pastor

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