The Shunammite Woman- Blessings Beyond Expectations: 2 Kings 4:8-37

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

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practical ways. Good morning, good morning, talk the whole morning.

Good morning to you and you and you.

Okay, well you got that out of your system.

That's it.

That's a job.

Thursday thrilled. This riveted.

They are thrilled. Your fan base is thrilled, which is

both of them. Both of them are going to send

us an email today.

My wife, yeah, and my daughter.

They love it.

That's funny. Hey, well listen, good morning to you. Welcome

to the Bible guys. We are Christian, Jeff and we

are or Jeff and Chris. You know Chris as the

sign says, never know, the sign says Jeff and Chris.

Yeah, but you're the one talking, so you get to

do it.

Okay, So Chris and Jeff and Jeff and we have

a great segment for you.

I think people really know it's Chris and Jeff, it's

not Jeff.

Whatever. Hey, to be truth be told. We don't really

know how this segment's.

Going to go. We've never done it before.

Yeah, it's a new one.

Yeah, I'm kind of looking at this segment skeptically.

Skeptically. Yeah, I don't know how it's going to go either,

but you know we did. We played along with that

other segment on Tuesday, right, which is that weird share

name thing. We'll get through that, okay, yeah, so we'll

see how this goes.

Let's see.

Oh, this is called story time but wrong. So Jeff

will start to tell a well known story and then

Chris will interrupt with lines altering the story and completely

unexpected ways.

How do we know when we're done?

I don't know.

You just just twenty four minutes.

Of No, it's just a few minutes. Okay, all right,

So tell me a common story, Jeff. Actually, you know what,

don't tell me, tell the audience.

Tell the audience a common story.

Yeah, have you ever heard the one about the what

the Okay?

Once upon a time? Yep, there was a farm girl

in Kansas.

Oh yeah, sure, Yeah.

They had a puppy. Yeah, and the neighbor lady next

door was particularly mean to her.

Right, and then I remember this, the lady took the

puppy and put it in a bag and threw it

in the lake, and that puppy died.

Wow, I know. So then she got another puppy, and

the lady hated that one too, and she named that

one Toto. Okay, keep going, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then

she was dreaming of somewhere over the rainbow.

Yeah. But on the way to this place, the house

stopped and landed on Mars. I'm not sure many people

understood this. Mars that actually the tornado. Well, I mean,

where's where's Oz?

Where's Oz on Mars? Apparently?

No, no, no, it's it's it's on Mars.

Is on the way Mars is on the way to Oz.

Correct. Yeah, so the house, but many people don't realize

that the Wizard of Oz just sort of skips over

this part.

Oh okay, but.

It landed on Mars, and it actually the house landed

on a Martian, So go ahead.

Okay, green Martian. Yeah, and this Martian had red shoes?

Is this is this the one that landed.

On Uh, it's up to you. You tell the story, dude.

You know, our listeners are like, what the heck is

happening right now?

I don't know where that came from. It just came

out of my brain.

So they take the red shoes and they have to

get to the Wizard of Oz. And so I guess

what you're trying to tell me, which we never knew

up to this point, was that the yellow brick road

led from Oz all the way to Mars.

Wow. That that is not where I.

Was because Oz is Oz is a green city.

Wow.

Wow, is that what you're saying?

Wait a minute, So are we concluding this terrible segment

by saying that that Emerald City is actually a Martian city?

This is what I think you just taught us.

Wow. Well, congratulations for this terrible lightning segment.

Yes, if anybody is still listening after four minutes of that, right,

we are not talking about Martians in the next sege.

Wait. Hey, by the way, to get off of this segment,

I did have about ten or twelve people or so

approached me and say thank you for promoting Wicked because

they went and saw it only because we talked about it.

Oh wow, and I was so passionate about it, and

they said it was unbelievable and they came up and

thanked me.

We also had people file complaints on it too, so

both sides talk complaints about us surprise that we would

promote it. So it's both sides. We got it both ways, well,

people love us and hate us.

That's what happens all the time, even as if Wicked's bad. Yeah,

you mean.

Like Harry Potter, which, oh you're inviting all kinds of

junk right now, dude, just leave it, That's what I

would do, all right. Yeah, Well, I was just saying,

there's the people who are fans of what you say,

and there are people who don't like what you say.

I understand.

And that's that's for both of us. It's true.

Okay, all right, that's all for.

Both of us, Just people who like what we say

and what we don't say. Sure, there's people who like

what we like, and there's people who don't like what

we like.

I understand.

You particularly like Wicked. Yes, I'm on the record of

saying I've never seen it.

Yes, that is so funny.

It's not a Broadway show.

But I've literally watched it twenty times.

I bet you have. It's only been out ten days,

but you've seen it twenty times. Right, Okay, all right. Second,

King's chapter four talking about Wicked. Elisha's not wicked. He's

a good guy.

That was a perfect, terrible transition speaking Wicked. There's no

wickedness in Elijah, and.

He's with this woman from Shunam, the Shunamite woman.

And I bet all the anti wicked people love.

That, that's right. One day Elisha went to the town

of Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged

him to come to her home for a meal, and

after that, whenever he passed that way, he would stop

there for something to eat. She said to her husband,

I am sure this man who stops in from time

to time is a holy man of God. Let's build

a small room for him on the roof and furnish

it with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp,

and then he will have a place to stay whenever

he comes by. One day Elisha returned to Shunam, and

he went up to this upper room to rest, and

he said to his servant Gahazi, tell the woman from Shunham,

I want to speak to her. When she appeared, Elisha

said to Gahazi, tell her, we appreciate the kind concern

you have shown us. What can we do for you.

Can we put in a good word for you to

the king or to the commander of the army. No,

she replied, my family takes good care of me. Later,

Elisha asked, Ahazi, what can we do for her? Gayzi applied,

she doesn't have a son, and her husband's an old man.

Call her back again, Elijha told him. When the woman returned,

Elisha said to her as she stood in the doorway,

next year, at this time, you'll be holding a son

in your arms. No, my lord, she cried, Oh, Man

of God, don't deceive me and get my hopes up

like that. But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant,

and at that time the following year, she had a son,

just as Elisha had said. Wow, I'm reading a long

passage here.

Yep, you're going to thirty seven.

One day, when her child was older, he went out

to help his father, who was working with the harvesters,

and suddenly he cried out, my head hurts, my head hurts.

His father said to one of the servants, carry him

home to his mother. So the servant took him home

and his mother held him on her lap. But around

noontime he died. She carried him up and laid him

on the bed of the Man of God, and then

shut the door and left him there. She sent a

message to her husband, send one of the servants and

a donkey so that I can hurry to the Man

of God and come right back. Why go today, he asked,

It is neither a new moon festival nor a sabbath.

But she said it'll be all right. So she saddled

the donkey and said to the servant, hurry, don't slow

down unless I tell you to. As she approached the

Man of God at Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in

the distance, and he said to Gahazi, look, the woman

from Shunam is coming. Run out to meet her and

ask her. Is everything all right with you, your husband and

your child? Yes? The woman told Gahazi everything is fine.

But when she came to the Man of God at

the mountain, she fell to the ground before him and

caught hold of his feet. Gahaze began to push her away,

but the Man of God said, leave her alone. She's

deeply troubled, but the Lord has not told me what

it is. Then she said, did I ask you for

a son, my Lord, and didn't I say? Don't deceive me?

Get my hopes up. Then Elisha said to Gahazi, get

ready to travel, take my staff and go. Don't talk

to anyone along the way, go quickly and lay the

staff on the child's face. But the boy's mother said,

as surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live,

I won't go home unless you go with me. So

Elisha returned with her Gahaz. He hurried on ahead and

laid the staff on the child's face, but nothing happened.

There was no sign of life. He returned to meet

Elisha and told him the child is still dead. When

Elisha arrived, the child was indeed dead, lying there on

the prophet's bed. He went in alone and shut the

door behind him and prayed to the Lord. And then

he laid down on the child's body, placing his mouth

on the child's mouth, his eyes on the child's eyes,

and his hands on the child's hands. And as he

stretched out on him, the child's body began to grow

warm again. Eliicia got up, walked back and forth across

the room once, and then stretched himself out in the

child again. This time, the boy sneezed seven times and

opened his eyes. Then Elijha summoned Gahazi called the child's mother,

he said, and when she came in, Elisha said, here,

take your son. She fell at his feet and bowed

before him, overwhelmed with the gratitude. Then she took her

son in his arms and carried him downstairs. Wow.

I've always thought that this is one of the most

peculiar miracles in the Bible. Yeah, Like, you know, remember

how like when Jesus healed the blind man, he spit

in the dirt and rub mud on his eyes. I

always wondered like, yeah, I always not like, why why

just speak the words? Why the spit and the mud?

Right?

And and but you know who can tell, right, who

can tell why the spit was necessary? Uh? You know

what was the significance of it? Right? And in this one,

I'm like, why, why why the mouth against the mouth,

the eyes against the eyes, you know, laying on top

of them, which again, he's been dead for days, right,

this child's been dead for days, and so you're laying

on a you know, have you ever felt a dead

corpse after a couple of days?

Right?

It doesn't feel great? And then uh and and so yeah,

so's he's doing all that and uh, but yet, you know,

you can't overlook the fact that it's just this unbelievable

miracle that once again God does the impossible in this case,

it's the miracle of all miracles, right, bringing somebody back

to life. What a strange and yet wonderful thing. And

by the way, I got emotion when you read that,

did you I did I get emotional? Yeah? This woman

who you know.

She's just don't get my hopes up?

Yeah, she just she falls in front of Elisha and

and and she says, didn't I tell you, doctor, get

my hopes up? I didn't ask you for this. You're

the one that did this. And now he's dead. And

and then and he says, okay, go back, and you know,

go in my name and lay the staff. And she's like,

it's just just think about the love of a mother.

Yeah right, yeah, yeah, it just gets me emotional.

The thing I read, the thing that really stood out

to me is, you know, the Bible only tells us

some of the highlights, correct, but it doesn't tell us everything.

Like John says at the end of the Book of

the Gospel of John. John says, if I tried to

write everything that Jesus did just in these three and

a half years, the world couldn't contain the books, right, right,

It's what John's saying, is what I wrote here. It

was like that all day, every day, all the time, right, right,

I couldn't possibly write everything. I just wrote the highlights.

So in this situation, Elisha says to Gahazi, hey, get

ready to travel, take my staff. Just late on his face,

he'll be fine. Gahazi doesn't even question. He goes, oh, okay,

because this is what we do, right, This is what

we do right, And he goes, oh okay. So apparently

Elisha was in the habit of doing miracles, you know,

long distance. He's doing these long distance miracles with a Gahazi. Hey,

take the staff. Elisha's probably getting towards being an old

man or whatever. He take the staff and go heal

this kid for me, because you know, this lady's been

really good to me, and hell this kid. And he

doesn't he doesn't even go, what are you talking about?

I can't do that. He goes all right, and he

goes all the way from Mount Carmel all the way

to shoot him. Right, it's quite quite a wayte this

is going to take a good journey, and that idea

is just hysterical to me. He goes, okay, this is

what we do. We you know, Elisha and me, we

we just raised dead kids, right right, So so again

we're only getting little glimpses of the things that God

did through Elisha and this power that God had in

Elisha's life at the time. But he gets up and

he goes and why did all this happen? It start

off because this woman show, a wealthy woman, saw Elisha

coming through shun him sometimes and needing a place to stay. Yeah,

you know in in Israel, I've noticed. And then this

is true out west too, as a matter of fact,

here in Michigan. So you know, Michigan used to be

the where we live now. Michigan used to be the northwest. Right.

When when you hear that phrase go west, young man,

remember that ye from Horace Greeley. He was talking about

going to Michigan. There was jobs here, logging here, all

this stuff. Right, So our towns tend to be half

a day's journey between towns is where the town's in.

The rural communities in Michigan tend to be. And so

you can go to one town, refuel and get to

the next town in a day's ride on a horse.

And it's that way throughout the West. They're about a

day or half a day in between towns. That's that's

so shoot him. It was kind of in one of

those places where for Elisha, if he was heading in

that direction, it's not uncommon for him to want to

stop off and shoot him. And you know they didn't

have you know, Mary up back then, and so you

know where you're going to stay. And so this woman

says to her husband, I think this is a man

of God. We should we should honor this man of God.

Let's just put a let's build a room up on

the rooftop, and let's put a bed there and a

chair there and a lamp there. Let's just make it

comfortable for him when he comes by. And she saw

the benefit of having a man of God, the access

to man of God for her family, right, And that's

where you get the This is where you get the

idea of the prophets chamber. A lot of churches will

have profits chambers, and it's it's this idea of let's

have a place that when people of God are travel

link somewhere they need to somewhere to stay, they stay there. Right.

Don't judge me for this, but I've never heard the

term profits chamber in my life.

Never heard it never, oh, man, that was that's a

Baptist thing. Man, every independent Baptist church. It seemed like

head of profits chamber. If they love missionaries, So if

you're in a high missionary kind of environment or a

lot of evangelists, yeah, they use them.

What do they call it when we've had people personage? Yeah,

I'm familiar that.

Yeah, that's that's a home for the pastor. But then

oftentimes they would have a room many many churches still do.

We'll have a room set aside for pastors and missionaries

and people cutting through travel, save them money. Yeah. So

my wife and I in our house, we have begun

working on our guest guest rooms specifically for that purpose,

so that when people of God are coming in the town,

need some place to stay and stay spending two hundred

bucks in a hotel, come and stay with us, right, Yeah,

And my mom and dad did that, And in fact,

the trajectory of my life has changed because my mom

and dad set aside We had a very small house,

so they set aside my bedroom as a prophet chamber.

And they explained this story, and they explained this idea

that hey, we want to have access to the men

of God and women of God who come through our area,

and so we wanted to make an offer. And my

mom is a tremendous cook and so in great hostess.

But we had a very small house. I think my

house when I was growing up was eight hundred and

something square feet.

That's pretty small.

Pretty small. And I hit my bedroom. I could stand

and I could, I could. I could touch the walls

like this and like this, so north and southeast west,

I could touch the walls.

It's like a Harry Potter under the stage kind of thing.

So my dad built in my bed with all of

my storage was underneath, and then I had a little

little closet. I could hang out a couple suits in

the thing. And then he built a bowed window and

that's where I kept. All my stuff was there. So

basically I could walk in turn the corner in my bed.

That that was it. But we would use that for

pastors and stuff that would come along, and I would

say six to eight times a year we would have

a missionary and evangelist, a traveling singer, somebody a preacher

staying in our home. And so I wound up becoming friends,

even as a teenager with a bunch of godly men

who began to kind of take me under their wing,

encouraged me. I had one guy would offer to take

me to different conferences or events that he was going

to be at. I'd just ride along and be me

and a bunch of adult preachers going somewhere. One of

these men was the one who told me about the

opportunity to win a scholarship for college. Because he asked me,

where are you going to go? I said, oh, no,

I don't know how I'm going to afford school, and

he goes, I know, you can go win a scholarship

at this school in a music competition. And it was

the men of God in our house all the time,

and they had a huge impact on my life and

on my brother's. Let my mark the next one down

our lives and it was because of this idea. So

something to that about getting access to your family, getting

your family access to godly people. I'm not saying me

as a preacher, saying godly people in general.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, see I would never would have had

that angle, not angle, But like, like immediately your first

phrase was this woman who was a wealthy woman knew

the benefit of having access to the man of God.

And she thought there was benefit yeah.

Yeah, And I would never have thought that ever, because

I would have thought that what she's saying is, hey,

I've been blessed with a lot. Let me be a

blessing to this man of God with nothing, expecting absolutely

nothing in return. So when he went to her and said, hey,

what can I do for you, She's like nothing.

Yeah. I don't know that her intent was what she

could get, yeah, correct. Yeah, And my mom and dad

read this story and said, hey, there's benefit o having

access to that men and women of God?

Got it?

Yeah, right, because there was for this woman. Yeah right.

He did two miracles for this woman, right.

Right, right, yeah, which you know quite the miracles, right right,

pregnancy and resurrection right. So yeah, so holy cow. But yeah, okay,

so I see what you're saying. So the uh so.

Your listeners are doing this with you right now. They're

giving you access to their home right now, or their

car or wherever they're spending time with godly people. And

I think that that's really the issue. Back in that day,

you didn't have, you know, podcasts, You didn't have the

ability to watch online or to connect with people you

know from a distance. And so her only way is

when he's cutting through town. We want access to him,

we want to be with him, we want we want

to be a blessing to him.

Yeah, you know, I guess I never really sat.

Fighting people into your life. They have an impact on you.

I was just going to say, And it's also a

great honor, right, one hundred percent to host somebody is

in the Middle East is radically different, right, It's an

honor to have him in your home, right, So yeah,

I thought, yeah, that's that's a really good point too. Yeah.

So so this idea that Elijah comes through town, excuse me, elishah,

all the Elijah's gone. Elijah's gone, Chris.

Jerebaums, It's so cool. We're on Alisha now, Okay.

So anyway, the fact that the fact that he uh

takes it upon himself and says, hey, I want to

give back to this lady. I want to bless this lady.

What can I do? And then and somebody says, well,

she's always wanted a son, her husband's old, and and

then he just he says, okay, okay, God, let's let's

do this for her, and and uh and and does that.

I just love the fact that, you know, let's just

pretend for a moment we don't know the inner workings

of her mind or heart, but we're assuming that she

just wants to be a blessing. She wants, you know,

she wants to be around the men of God. She

wants it to be a great honor. She wants to honor,

you know, maybe him to bless her home something like this.

But what she didn't ask for was what she got.

She didn't ask for major blessings like this. Right, she

gave with not with the expectation of getting back. And

so there's a sermon in there somewhere about about you know,

you know, we give, we give our tithes and our offerings,

not with the expectation expectation of giving back. But yet

God sometimes gives back, right, and he promises to bless us,

and so we know blessings are coming. That's not our motivation.

But we give because we honor and so just like

this woman, and you know, and even in the Testament,

Jesus says, hey, if somebody borrows, uh, don't borrow with

the intent of getting something back. Borrow with the intent

of just giving loan, just loan, just loan. Out and uh.

And so it's just this idea of like like you know, hey,

just give to God, but you can't outgive God because

God's going to continue to bless you. He's going to

continue to be with you. You're going to get his favor,

You're going to get his blessings. Sometimes it's you know

more than you give.

Right, when you align yourself with what God loves, you're

going to benefit because God's always going to bless what

he loves, right, It's important to him, his agenda, his mission,

the other God's allies. When you align yourself with God's allies.

Every single time in the Bible, when you find the

people who align themselves with the people who are allied

with aligned with God, they get blessed. Think of Rehab

in Jericho, right, Jericho is getting wiped out. Reab goes, no,

I'm on their side. You protect me and my whole family. Right.

Everybody else gets wiped out except her and her family,

and then she winds up being in the family of Jesus,

the family lineage of Jesus. You can go down the

line every time in the Bible when people who are

aligned with God are when people align themselves with those

who are aligned with God and on God's mission. God

blesses all of them, and it's just an overwhelming amount

of blessing. And so when you learn to love the

things God loves, when you decide to make priority the

things that God's made a priority, of course, everything is

going to be provided that you need. But then God's

never going to be a debtor to you. You're never

going to give more to him than he's going to

give back to you. Right, there's never a time. And

so this is what happens for this woman is she goes,

I think that's a man of God. We should take

care of him. We've got plenty. God's blessed us. Let's

be a blessing to him. And then she could not

fathom the blessing. And this is that idea. Whatsoever a

man sows, that shall he also reap. Is what the

Bible says. Whatever you plant, you're going to get back.

But you plant one kernel of corn and you get

a six foot stock with two or three ears of corn,

with hundreds of kernels of corn back from one right,

And this is what happens for her, And she goes,

let's make a little room. Let's make life comfortable for him.

Let's just make his life easier. Let's be a blessing.

And then he goes, what do you need? He's trying

to figure out which, By the way, there's a lesson

there for us too. He's sitting there contemplating, this woman's

been good to me, how can I be good back? Hey,

what's his name, Baghazi? What's the name Gahazi? He says, Hey, Gahazi,

go find out how we can take care of this woman.

He come back out. She has one anything, he said,

go ask her again. So he goes back again, and

then finally Gahazi says, well they don't have any children. Okay,

God give him children. And so that his gratefulness also

was a part of the miracle. You know, when you

and I decide to be grateful to the people that

are are being good to us, right, there's usually something

really good that's about to happen when we express gratefulness back.

So it goes both ways here in this story. That's great,

really amazing.

Well, hey, that is our time, so hopefully we will

see you tomorrow as you join us for the babble. Guys,