Farm Aid (2 Kings 8:1-6)

A few years ago my cousin died. He was a good bit older than me.

In our last meeting, he told me a story.

Story was about our aunt. That would be his father's

sister, my mother's sister, our aunt.

Story takes place in 1955. My cousin is a freshman at the

Dubois Business College in the small town of Dubois, PA,

Western Pennsylvania, the town where I grew up.

My cousin is a freshman at the Dubois Business College.

He is walking down the street. This is before the days of air

conditioning, and he walks past a bar.

The door is open. Inside the bar he hears a woman.

She is boisterous. She is cackling, she's making a

fool of herself. She is loud, she's out of

control. She can be heard on the street.

My cousin walks by. He looks in the bar room and it

is our aunt. She was the town drunk.

That was 1955. Father in Heaven, I pray today

that you will enable me, Lord, please, to preach Your word with

accuracy. Lord, I pray that You would fill

me with Your Holy Spirit and enable me and help me.

I pray that I would not just be reading words off of a page.

But Lord, I pray that you would fill me with Your Holy Spirit

and enable me to proclaim Your word so as to help Your people,

Lord, not only to teach them about restoration, but Lord, I

pray that you, more importantly today, would grant restoration

to these dear people through Your mighty power.

This we pray in Jesus name, Amen.

All right, a few observations before we get into the Word.

First of all, I would like to thank the men who came

yesterday, devoted their day to listening to the Word.

And I would like to thank you wives and your mother's who gave

your men away yesterday to come and to hear the word.

I was very impressed by the maturity of the men who were

there yesterday. I was very, very encouraged.

Secondly, I would like to say thank you to Brandon and to

Hannah for housing me last night for the biscuit that I ate this

morning. It was glorious.

I have known Brandon since 2010 and what a joy it is to see this

young man who was once an intern and then an employee of our

church, now serving you so well. Brother, I just want to say that

I love you and I am excessively proud of you.

I know that you hit the jackpot. When got him, and I think you

know that as well. Also concerning the service that

happened this morning, I am still in awe of what I witnessed

this morning, how orderly it was, how thoughtful it was, what

an excellent job Michael did in leading the service this

morning. This is, I don't think that our

church is capable of doing this, but it certainly was enjoyable

for me to observe it. I was very blessed by the entire

service up up to this point. Thank you so much for leading

the service this morning. And then what is obvious to any

visitor that comes in the excessive amount of work that

goes into setting up. I think that you should give a

special thank you verbally in person to those who are

responsible for setting up on Sunday mornings.

They put in a lot of work and it is a grace, great grace of God.

And then something finally that is almost spooky and that is how

abnormally well behaved your children are during the worship

service. I'm not sure that they're

actually real. They might be actors and

actresses that you have hired to impress me.

But that was that was quite a blessing to see how the children

sat through the worship service thus far.

So I bring you greetings from North Shore Baptist Church and I

am really happy to be here this morning going to talk to you

today on the subject of restoration.

Let me illustrate why restoration is needed.

Few years ago I went for a haircut.

I spoke to my Barber. He speaks very little English

and in speaking to him, I said, I need you to just cut a little

bit so that I can move what I have around so as to appear as

though I have hair. And the reason that I said that

to him, Nick, is because I'm not a quitter.

OK, I'm going to. I'm going to fight this thing to

the end. Now as he is cutting my hair, a

friend of his walks in and sits behind him.

My Barber continues to cut my hair but to have a conversation

with the man sitting behind him, he is cutting my hair.

I'm looking at my head because I have mirror in front of me.

He is not looking at my head, he is cutting my hair.

And at the end of that I looked in the mirror and I said

suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be.

I am now in need of restoration. But we need restoration not only

with our hairstyles, we need a we need restoration in all areas

of life. Job put it best when he said man

born of woman is a few days and full of trouble.

All the King's horses and all the King's men are busy.

Entropy has an undefeated record.

Fairy tale endings are reserved for fairy tales.

And you know the reason why this is true is because of sin.

Through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin,

and thus death spread to all men.

We in this world have finances which evaporate.

We have relationships which implode.

We have emotions which disintegrate.

If you can replace a hip or a Fender or a roof in this fallen

world, you're going to make a very good living.

The place where we need restoration the most is the

place where we feel it the least, and that is in our

relationship with God. We all need restoration.

In order to illustrate this, I would like to tell you a Bible

story about restoration. It comes from Second Kings

2 Kings 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8. Would ask please, that you would

take your copy of the Scripture and turn to 2nd Kings Chapter 8.

Here's what I'm going to do. I am going to read these verses.

As I read them, I'm going to make a bit of a running

commentary and then at the conclusion of the reading of

Scripture, I'm going to make 3 points and then we will be

finished. Let's look at the text of the

script. Sure, hear the word of the Lord,

Second Kings 8 verse one. Now Elisha, let's just stop

right there, Who was Elisha? Elisha was the one who came

after Elijah. Elisha was the most prolific

miracle worker in the Bible apart from the Lord Jesus

Christ. Now Elisha had said to the woman

whose son he had restored to life, Arise and depart with your

household and sojourn or temporarily travel wherever you

can. Why?

For the Lord has called for a famine, and it will come upon

the land for seven years. So the woman arose and did

according to the word of the man of God.

She went with her household and sojourn in the land of the

Philistines 7 years. Who is the woman that is being

referred to here? She's commonly called the

Shunamite woman. We are introduced to her back in

Second Kings chapter 4. As she was a very generous and a

2 Kings 4 · chapter mention

hospitable and benevolent woman. She knew that the prophet Elijah

would be passing through her region frequently and so she

said to her husband, why don't we build A room on top of our

house so that the prophet will have somewhere to stay.

So they built those accommodations and whenever

Elijah would come through that way, he would have a place to

sleep. Elisha was very appreciative of

this and he said to the woman, you've done so much for me, what

can I do for you? The woman said, I have

everything that I need. I dwell among my people.

You don't have to do anything for me.

But the assistant of Elisha, a man by the name of Ghazi, that

is the Western Pennsylvania pronunciation of that properly

you would say Ghazi, but I will say Ghazi.

Ghazi said, I know what the woman needs.

She's getting a little bit older and her husband is already old

and they don't have any children.

So Elisha says to the woman, next year at this time, you're

going to have a son. Fade in, fade out.

A year later, the little boy is born.

Little boy grows up. He's out in the field one day

working with his father. He begins to complain of a

headache, comes into the house, crawls up on his mother's lap,

and there, without warning, he dies in her arms.

The woman lifts the child, walks up the stairs into Elisha's

bedroom, lays the child on the bed, and then travels 16 miles

to Mount Carmel where Elisha is. When she greets him, she tells

him what is going on. And Elijah was probably a little

bit older at the time, not as fleet a foot as Gehezy says to

Gehezy. Here is my staff, take it.

Go back to Shunam, go into the bedroom, lay the staff across

the child. Don't talk to anybody along the

way, just run as fast as you can and get there quickly.

Gehezy goes into the bedroom, lays the staff across the child

and nothing happens. Elisha and the woman make the

journey more slowly back to Shunam and Elisha goes into the

bedroom with the child and in what is arguably the most

unusual prayer meeting in all the Bible raises the child to

life and gives the little boy back to his mother.

That is the woman that is being referred to here now.

Sometime later, the Lord revealed to Elisha that because

of the covenant unfaithfulness of the people of Israel, there

was going to be a famine which was going to last for seven

years. Consider the magnitude of this

famine. Back in First Kings chapter 17,

1 Kings 17 · chapter mention

there was a famine which lasted for three years and six months.

And during that time people were dying.

So if you double that time, there is no way that you're

going to be able to stay in the land and survive.

And so Elisha says to the woman in an act of kindness, you've

got to get out of here. And so the woman and her

household move from there and go to the land of the Philistines

for seven years. That is the woman that is being

referred to here, verse 3. And at the end of seven years,

when the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, she

went to appeal to the king for her house and her land.

Apparently, while she was gone, someone confiscated her property

and it appears to have been the government.

Nothing ever changes and she now goes to the king and says I want

my house back. I want my farm back, I want my

land back. Which brings us to verse 4.

Now I can read the English words of verse 4.

I can tell you what these words mean.

But here's what I'm not going to be able to do for you this

morning. I am not going to be able to

explain to you the why of verse four.

I think it is one of the most bizarre, unusual verses in all

the Bible. Like, I don't know why it

happened. I believe that it did happen,

but it is really crazy. Look at verse 4.

Now the king. Let's just stop right there.

The king is King Jehoram. He is the grandson of Ahab and

Jezebel, and the apple has not fallen far from the tree.

He is a wicked and idolatrous king.

The king of Israel, the northern Kingdom of Israel.

Now the king was talking with Gehazy.

Why was Gehazy available for a conversation?

Well, he was available for a conversation because he was no

longer in the ministry. And the reason he was no longer

in the ministry is because he was now defrocked.

He had been kicked out of the ministry and he was now a leper.

And the reason that this has happened is because he tried to

extort money from a Syrian general by the name of Naaman.

Now the king was talking with Ghazi, the servant of the man of

God, saying, Tell me all the great things that Elisha has

done. This is really out of the

ordinary that this Pagan king would wake up one day and speak

to the leprous defrocked clergyman Ghazi and say, I want

you to tell me all of the great things that God has done through

the hand of Elisha. The reason this is really out of

place is because first of all, this king hated Elisha and on

multiple occasions tried to kill him.

Secondly, this king was actually present for some of the

miracles. Why he woke up one day and

wanted this information I cannot tell you, but it is a key

ingredient in bringing restoration to this woman.

Now look very closely at verse 5 and pay special attention to the

second English word in verse 5. And while WHILE while he gehezy,

was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life.

Behold, or in other words, paint a picture in your mind's eye.

Behold the woman. This is the Shunamite woman

whose son he had restored to life, appealed to the king for

her house and for her land. And Ghazi said, my Lord, O king,

here is the woman and here is her son, whom Elijah restored to

life. Get the picture?

Ghazi is wakened up and he's told the king wants to talk to

you. He goes before the king says,

how can I help you? And the king says, yeah, I'm

just curious. Can you just give me a rundown

of all the great deeds that Elijah has done?

He says why? I don't even know where to

begin. I I suppose I could begin at the

beginning on the other side of the Jordan when we were there

and Elijah got taken up into heaven and his mantle fell.

You remember swing low, sweet chariot coming forward to carry

me home. His mantle fell upon Elisha.

He caught it. He used it to part the waters of

the Jordan River. He walked to the other side.

When he got to the other side, he was in Jericho and the water

was bitter. He like salt, he throws it in

the water. It becomes sweet from there.

He walks on to Bethel. As he's walking on to Bethel,

there are some young people that are mocking him.

And lo and behold, what happens? Some bear come out of the woods

and maul the people that were mocking him.

There was another Cajun king. You yourself were there.

You know it. We went on that military

expedition. We didn't have any water.

We were dying of thirst. And without the aid of river,

without the aid of rain, he produced water.

Our thirst was quenched. It gave the optical illusion of

blood. Our our enemies came out and we

defeated him. You, you already know that,

king. There was another time we were

down at the Jordan River and we had an axe.

It was a borrowed axe. Somebody was chopping the tree

and the axe head fell off, sunk into the water, sunk to the

bottom of the Jordan River. Along comes Elijah with a stick.

He waves the stick over the water and in an axe head

floated. There was another occasion when

we were getting ready to eat and some knucklehead through bitter

herbs into the Stew. It was poisonous.

And along comes Elijah. He puts a little bit of flour in

and the Stew becomes edible. There were so many.

One time, one time, King, he actually blinded an entire army.

There are so many miracles. I, I, I can't tell you all of

them, but by far the greatest miracle, the strangest miracle

that ever happened, there was this this boy over in Shunam.

I'm telling you, King, the, the, the boy wasn't sick.

He wasn't injured, he wasn't wounded.

He, he was dead. He was cold.

He was dead. And, and Elijah comes into the

bedroom and he lays on top of the boy.

And King, it was the that's him and that's his mother.

While WHILE while he was talking to the king about the boy and

his mother, the boy and his mother walked into the presence

of the king. Now the king at this point

thinks probably that it is choreographed.

So he needs to corroborate and make sure that this actually is

is factual. And so in verse 6, notice the

restoration and how it comes about.

And when the king asked the woman, he quizzed the woman.

He says it is this. So when the king asked the

woman, she told him. So what did this wicked

idolatrous king do? So the king appointed an

official for her saying restore, that's our word for the day.

Restore all that was hers together with the produce of the

fields from the day that she left the land until now.

In other words, give her her house back.

Give give her her land back. And anything that would have

grown on that property during the last seven years, that is

completely to be restored to her in full right now.

But that is our Bible story. From this I would like us to

derive 3 points of. The first is this #1 the

glorious doctrine of restoration is controlled by the design of

Providence. The glorious doctrine of

restoration is controlled by the design of Providence.

And by that I mean the confluence of of this man

talking about this woman and this boy and this woman and this

boy walking into the room at the exact time.

The Providence of God. What is the Providence of God?

Well, quite simply, it is the fact that God has absolute

control over all things. He is orchestrating the movement

of the largest planet and the smallest molecule and everything

in between. He's got the whole world in His

hands. Or if you want to think about it

in this way, he has a lock. LOCK on all things.

He limits, orders, controls, and knows everything.

The Abstract of Principles from the Southern Baptist Seminary in

Louisville, KY. Article 4 puts it this way.

God from eternity decrees or permits all things that come to

pass, all things that come to pass, and perpetually upholds,

directs, and governs all creatures and all events.

End Quote and well said. Presbyterians are much more

succinct. They say God ordains whatsoever

comes to pass. You see, God is in control.

And since God is in control, there are some practical

implications for us. The first is that if God is God

and he is in control, there is therefore now no such thing as

luck. The God of the Bible and luck

cannot exist simultaneously. He is in charge of everything

that is happening. Nothing is random.

It is common for young people today when they see something

happening which is out of the ordinary, they will say this

phrase, oh, that was so random. Well, I understand what they

mean in that it was out of the ordinary, but it was far from

random. It it was all by design.

Everything that happens is by design.

Christian young people will say something like this, something

good happens. They will say that was such a

God thing. Now I don't want to argue with

them and say that it was not a God thing.

I would simply like them to point out something that he's

not a God thing. All things, by definition are

God things. Seeing as how God ordains all

things, He is in control of everything through divine

Providence. Let's just do the math on this

for a second. It was 7 years, but roughly

25150 days. What are the mathematical odds?

I'm in a college town here. There are some bright minds.

There are some bright mathematical minds in the room

right near now. What are the mathematical odds

that after 25150 days, on the exact day, at the exact hour, at

the exact moment when Ghazi would be talking about the woman

and her son, at that moment she would walk into that room?

Can you calculate it? There's a horse race in Kentucky

first Saturday in May every year.

A few years ago there was a horse that won that race and the

odds of that horse winning the race were 82 to one.

What are we looking at here? 83 to 1?

Or maybe the odds are better, like 100 to 1.

Or maybe the odds are even better, a billion to 1.

So you're telling me there's a chance?

No, there is no way to calculate the odds on this.

The odds are 0. The probability of this

happening is 0. Unless someone is directing

traffic. And the point of my sermon today

is that restoration comes about because someone is directing

traffic and that someone is God. Providence is a friend to

restoration. Now let me be clear, I'm not a

fatalist. I fully believe that you make

volitional choices which are uncoerced, but at the same time

you need to know that you are exactly where you are, both

literally sitting in that chair. That is where you have been

ordained to be, and you are where you are figuratively in

life by the design of Providence.

Let me tell you a story about a friend of mine.

I had a friend. He lived in another state and

for many years I tried to evangelize this man

unsuccessfully and he had several things going against

him. A number 1, he was from a Jewish

background and so therefore he had an aversion through his

family upbringing to Jesus Christ.

Secondly, he was from a scientific background and was

raised as an atheist so did not believe in God because of his

scientific background. His third problem is that he was

a heroin addict and #4 he was sometimes on and off homeless.

Well, as the story goes, on one of his homeless stints he was

high on heroin, walked into the street and was struck by a car.

He was taken to the hospital and when he arrived at the hospital

and was given his hospital gown, it was discovered that the

clothes that he was wearing were unwearable.

They were filthy and so his clothes were thrown away and he

for the next 8 weeks was in this hospital in a hospital gown.

Now, Providence, you remember Providence, Providence had it

that there was a nurse who was taking care of him every day.

At the time, this nurse was not a Christian, but she was a very

compassionate young lady and she loved this man.

So he is in there. He's being cared for.

His wounds, he's being dried out from his heroin addiction.

He's in this hospital. He spends the eight weeks there.

He's being cared for by this nurse and it's time for him to

leave and to go to a rehab center.

When it's time for him to go, it is discovered that he doesn't

have any clothes. So this nurse goes to one of her

mother's friends who's roughly the same size as this man and

says can you give me some clothes so that he will have

something to wear to the rehab center.

And this man gladly gives his clothes.

He goes to the rehab center and he calls me and he says you're

not going to believe where I have been for the last 8 weeks.

And he tells me the story as Providence would have it, the

town where he was in the rehab center, which was in another

state from me and was 40 miles away from this hospital, the

town happened to be a town where I knew several Christians.

And so I formed a text thread amongst my Christian friends,

about 10 of them or so. And I said, listen, I know that

life is busy and you have a lot of things to take care of in

your own life. But if you have an opportunity,

could you please go by such and such a nursing home or a rehab

center and visit this man and bring him the gospel.

Moments later a woman in that text thread said, I know exactly

who this man is. My daughter is a nurse and she

has been taking care of him for the last 8 weeks.

She loves this man. She is very compassionate toward

him. I know who he is.

Moments later, Chris, the man who had donated his clothes,

jumped in on the text thread and said, On my way to the rehab

center now, don't know this man, don't know what he looks like.

I'll just go in and look for the guy who's wearing my clothes.

Over the course of the next couple of months, my friends

maniacally visited him and brought him the gospel.

Initially he was resistant, but the light came on one day and

when he discovered that the mathematical probabilities of

all of this happening, he said there is no way that my friend's

friend's mother's daughter would take care of me and that the

clothes on my back belong to a friend of yours.

He said there must be a God, and when he concluded that there

must be a God, the House of Cards crumbled and he concluded

that Jesus is the Son of God and he was gloriously and radically

saved. Why?

Through the biblical doctrine of Providence, God uses Providence

to bring about restoration. So I just want to give you some

comfort right now. You might be asking yourself,

what am I doing? What am I doing in life?

Why am I where I am right now? Is there any purpose to this?

Is it all just random? And I want to say to you, no,

it's not random. There is someone who is

directing traffic and in His Providence He is using, He is

using all events and all people to bring about His glory and

your good. Which brings us to point #2 and

that is that the glorious doctrine of restoration is

communicated most effectively in the context of pain.

Pain. Point #2 is pain.

What was the greatest pain that this woman ever felt?

Well, I don't even want to think about it very long.

It was the death of her son. But play it out.

If her son doesn't die, then her son doesn't rise from the dead.

And if her son doesn't rise from the dead, the king would be

unmoved. This woman walks into the

presence of the king and interrupts the king.

He would say to her, who are you?

And she would say, my land, my property has been taken from me.

And the king would say, woman, get in line, we have just had a

seven-year drought, I can't help you.

That which moved the hand of this wicked king was the fact

that he witnessed a boy who had been dead but was now alive.

But unless you die, you can't come back to life.

But let me be very sympathetic right now and say I want to

acknowledge that pain by definition is painful.

Not trying to be redundant. I know that we live in a fallen

world where there is such a thing as pain.

And I want to be sympathetic to your pain.

And I don't know what your pain is.

Maybe you're sitting beside someone right now and you are

contemplating divorce. Maybe you don't know where the

money is going to come from at the end of this month to pay

your rent. Maybe you are going through

depression. Maybe cancer is currently

galloping through your body. I don't know what your pain is.

But you're living in the same world that I'm living in.

And we live in a world that is filled with pain.

I just want to point out to you today that in God's process of

restoration, pain is not meaningless.

Let's consider the story of Joseph.

If Joseph is not the favorite and he doesn't get the coat of

many colors. If he doesn't get the coat of

many colors, then his brothers don't hate him.

They don't hate him. They don't sell him into

slavery. If they don't sell him into

slavery, he doesn't go to Egypt. He doesn't go to Egypt.

He doesn't meet Potiphar. If he doesn't meet Potiphar, he

doesn't meet Potiphar's wife. If he doesn't meet Potiphar's

wife, he doesn't get falsely accused of rape.

If he doesn't get accused of rape, he doesn't go to jail.

If he doesn't go to jail, he doesn't meet the cupbearer.

If he doesn't meet the cupbearer, then he doesn't

interpret the cupbearer's dream. If he doesn't interpret the

cupbearer's dream, then the cupbearer doesn't know that he

can interpret dreams. So when Pharaoh has his big

dream, you remember the big dream of the seven years of

plenty followed by the seven years of famine.

If that dream is not interpreted, then they're going

to squander the produce from the seven years of plenty.

And if that happens, then the people in that region of the

world are going to die. And if people in that region of

the world are going to die, then his family is going to die.

And if his family dies, his brother Judah is going to die.

And if his brother Judah dies, there's no King David.

If there's no King David, there's no King David's greater

son. If there's no King David's

greater son, Jesus Christ, you're going to hell, and so am

I. But put all of those things

together, and many of them are painful.

In the end, it leads to what restoration?

Now, if you put blinders on Joseph in any segment of that

story, let's just say, for example, we are talking to

Joseph and he is in prison for a crime that he did not commit,

and he has been forgotten for two years.

And you interview him and you say to him what's going on right

now There would be cause and there would be reason for

bitterness. But when you lift off in your

Romans 828 helicopter and you see that God causes all things

to work together for good, including the pain that we are

going through to those who are the called according to his

purpose for those who love God. Then when your brothers come to

you at the end of the story and they give their half hearted

apology, you can say to them sincerely, you meant it for

evil. I'm not giving you a pass on

this. You, you guys really are bad.

You meant it for evil. But there is something greater

at play here. And so I'm not going to be

vindictive toward you. You meant it for evil, but God

meant it for good to bring it about this day, to save many

people alive. And he himself didn't even know

the magnitude of that at the time.

But none of it happens without the pain.

Consider the greatest pain that the world has ever known.

For six hours the spotless Son of God is hanging on a cross.

Prior to hanging on that cross, they flog him, and they jerk out

his beard, and they put upon him a crown of thorns, and they

place a Reed in his hand. And then they take the Reed out

of his hand, and they strike him on the head, pounding the thorns

into his skull. Isaiah says his visage was

marred more than any man. In other words, he doesn't even

look like a human being. He bore in his body our sins

upon the tree. This is pain, but it's not just

the physical pain that Jesus endured.

There was something far worse than that, and that was the

spiritual pollution that He endured.

We're all like sheep, we've all gone astray, but the Lord hath

laid upon him the iniquity of us all, that he who knew no sin

became sin for us. And so He is suffering in His

body. He is bearing our sins, but

worse, worse than that is the payment that He makes for our

sins, and that is that God the Father is pleased to crush him

and that for six hours on the cross God the Father hammers him

to death. The full vented wrath of God is

spent on him to the point where Christ cries out.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Such pain the world has never known.

But what is that pain? That pain is your salvation.

It's not just an ingredient in your salvation.

It is the essence of your salvation, the just for the

unjust, in order that he might bring us to God.

Do you understand that we today are restored and will be

eternally restored because of the pain which Jesus endured on

the cross? God uses pain to bring about

restoration point #3 And finally, the glorious doctrine

of restoration must be accompanied with a demonstration

of divine power. The glorious doctrine of

restoration must be accompanied with a demonstration of divine

power, specifically here, the power of a risen sun.

You see, the only reason why the king was willing to restore her

property, It, it had nothing to do with sympathy.

It, it had nothing to do with justice.

It it it had nothing to do with equity.

There was a reason that this wicked king was willing to

restore her property. It was because her previously

dead son was now alive and was standing by her side.

Let me speak to you about this objectively and then

subjectively, and then we will be done.

Think about what is happening here objectively, and I will

make the argument from the lesser to the greater.

If a wicked, idolatrous king, hearing the testimony of a

leprous, defrocked clergyman, was willing to grant total

restoration to a woman that he didn't even know, based solely

upon the appearance of a boy who was dead but was now alive, but

a boy who would eventually die and die permanently if that

happened, that's the lesser. Here's the greater.

How much more will a good, loving, eternal, intentional God

not grant ultimate eternal restoration to his elect when he

sees his perfect, eternal Son standing by our side, proof of

our justification. A son who was dead, but a son

who is now alive, alive, alive forever more.

In other words, before the throne of God above.

I have a strong and perfect plea.

And God the Just is satisfied to look at him and to pardon or to

restore me. Brothers and sisters, I want you

to see this more than anything else that I'm saying this

morning. Jehoram was not looking at that

woman at all. She was irrelevant.

That woman walked into his presence and he said, who are

you? She said, I'm a woman whose

property has been taken away, and I believe it should be

restored to me. Yeah.

Why is that? Because I am a benevolent woman.

Because I am a generous woman. I I I built a room for the

prophet Elisha. The king would say to her, I

ought to have you imprisoned. I hate that prophet.

In other words, your righteousness is like filthy

rags. It means nothing in this court.

No, the woman comes in and her plea from beginning to end has

nothing to do with her and her merits.

It is a son that is standing beside her, which caught the

attention of the king. And I am a happy, happy man

because in the final day in that judgment room, God from his

throne is not going to be looking at me at all.

Nothing, nada. He's going to be looking at one

who is standing beside me, a son who was dead but now is alive

forever more. The risen son standing by my

side. And that is the gospel.

And that is your only hope, your restoration, the sum total of it

is that Jesus Christ died for you, is risen for you, and in

the final day we'll be standing beside you.

That's the gospel. And the gospel is of first

importance. That's how it works objectively.

Now subjectively. How did that boy get into that

room? It's an honest question.

He was outside of the room and then he was in the room.

How did he get into the room? I know this is a Nine Marks

church, but you can answer how, how, how did he get into the

room? Anyone.

This is important. Yes.

He walked in. Yes.

Which makes you the smartest boy in the room.

That's right. He walked in.

If the woman walks in and she is carrying a corpse or a skeleton

and she says I want my property back, well, before I ask you who

you are, what is that that you have in your arms?

Oh, this is my son. He, he, he, he was dead.

And then he came to life. But, but he's, he's now dead.

Hand of the King would not have been moved.

There was subjective proof of life.

A boy who had been dead came to life and under his own power

walked into the room giving proof of life.

Restoration yields proof of life.

So it's 1955. My cousin's walking down the

street, walks past a bar room. My aunt is in that bar room,

drunk out of her mind. A woman that was so shameful in

our town that my father didn't even tell people that he was

related to her. Fast forward to 1959, my aunt is

drunk again. This time she falls down a

flight of stairs and she breaks her back and she is in the

hospital and she wants to be left alone.

She is in excruciating pain. She had been raised with the

gospel but had obviously rejected it.

And from that bed in that hospital in 1959, she prays to

the Lord and says, have mercy upon me.

Her testimony was that she saw a picture of herself and it was

extremely ugly. She cries out to Christ and says

have mercy upon me, heal me, deliver me, save me, and I will

live the rest of my life for you.

The Lord touches her, the Lord saves her.

The the Lord raises her off of that hospital bed and the first

Wednesday night after she returned home from the hospital,

she walked down the street into our tiny little Christian and

Missionary Alliance church on a Wednesday night.

Now the custom in those days was before the prayer meeting, the

pastor would stand up and would say, does anybody have a word of

testimony that they would like to give concerning their love

for the Lord? Not like a testimony of

salvation, but just someone getting up and just saying how

much they love the Lord. It was very spontaneous.

Several people would stand and do it.

The opportunity is given and my aunt stays silent.

She leaves the prayer meeting that night, walks back to her

home, goes into her bedroom, gets down on the floor and

begins to weep. And she says to the Lord,

tonight I was ashamed of you. Tonight I disowned you.

If I were to die before I could get back there and tell the

people what the Lord has done for me, it would be a horrible

thing. Lord, I'm asking you, please

just give me one more chance to tell of my love for you.

And if that opportunity is given to me, I will never deny you

again. That is in 1959.

I'm not born until 1961. And in western Pennsylvania, in

small churches, things usually don't change much over the

decades. But I can remember for the

entirety of my life growing up in that church in the 1960s and

in the 1970s, on Wednesday night, when the pastor would

stand and he would say, would anybody like to give a testimony

of their love for the Lord? What he meant in reality was

this. Would anybody like to go second?

Because before he could even get the words out of his mouth, she

would stand and interrupt him and she would talk about her

love for Christ. And it was always fresh and it

was always real and it was never choreographed.

She was alive and there was evidence of life.

Friends, I don't want to know, are you a member of a church and

have you been baptized? It is good to be a member of a

church. You are commanded to be

baptized. That is a good thing.

I don't want to know. Have you at some time in the

past read the Sinner's prayer? My question to you is simple.

Could you walk in that room and stand in front of that king?

In other words, are you alive? Do you love the Lord Jesus

Christ? Is there evidence of life?

You see, when God brings about restoration, Amen.

Hallelujah, praise the Lord. It is objective.

And before the throne of God above I, I, I, I have a sure and

a perfect plea. But there is also a

manifestation of that in the here and now, and that is that

if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation and that the old

is gone and that the new has come.

I don't want to know about your doctrine.

I don't want to know about your theology.

It's good to have good doctrine and good theology.

Here's what I simply want to know.

Are you alive? Do you love the Lord Jesus

Christ? Paul writes in First Corinthians

1 Corinthians 16 · chapter mention

chapter 16. If anyone does not love the Lord

Jesus Christ, let him be accursed.

So I want to give you encouragement with respect to

restoration. We are living in a funky, messed

up, fallen world where we have pain and sorrow and we will have

for the rest of our days when not only are we going to get bad

haircuts, we're going to have really bad things that are going

to happen to us. I want you to take courage

today, brothers and sisters. That absolutely none of it zero

is random. That God in His Providence is

controlling all of it. And I want you to know that when

these bad things happen, they are not out of God's control.

But God, in fact, sometimes and frequently does use the painful

things in our lives to bring about restoration.

Most importantly, I want you to know that this restoration comes

about through the power of a risen sun, the power that you

will possess in the final day to stand in front of him unashamed,

and the power to Live Today a restored and a new life, because

he, through his regenerating spirit and his sustaining

spirit, has restored you. And it will be evident to all.

Thank you for your attentiveness today.

I must confess, this is kind of a creepy attentiveness.

I'm not accustomed to people paying attention this well.

I want to thank you for that. Father in Heaven, we love you.

Thank you, Lord, for looking upon us in our unrestored state

and having mercy upon us now, Lord, as we have learned about

this. Amen.

Hallelujah, may we remember it. But more than that, I would ask

your God that you would bring restoration to our lives.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.