The Sound of Your Deliverance

I'm Jason, also serve here as one of the pastors, and we have been walking our way through the book of 2 Kings, if you want to find chapter 6 today.

Chapter 6, we're going to pick up in verse 24, and we're actually going to read all the way through chapter 7. Chapter 6, verse 24, all the way through chapter 7, and if you're newer with us, we do have scripture journals that are in the back.

You can find those at the Welcome Center. You can go get one right now if you'd like. And we encourage you to pick one of those up, or if you've got a notebook, whatever it is that is helpful for you to keep track of a few notes and some different thoughts that you might have as we work our way through this passage.

So it's quite a bit of reading today. I'm going to read all of the rest of chapter 6 from verse 24 on to the end, and the entire chapter, chapter 7.

So follow along with me as I read for us.

Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall,

A woman cried out to him, saying, Help my lord, O king. And he said, If the lord will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?

The king asked her, What is your trouble? She answered, This woman said to me, Give your son that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.

So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, Give your son that we may eat him. But she has hidden her son. When the king heard the words of this woman, he tore his clothes.

Now he was passing by on the wall, and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body. And he said, May God do so to me, and more also, if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat, remains on his shoulders today.

Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Now the king had dispatched a man from his presence. But before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, Do you see how this murderer has sent to take off my head?

Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door fast against him. Is not the sound of his master's feet behind him? And while he was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him and said, This trouble is from the Lord.

Why should I wait for the Lord any longer? But Elisha said, Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord, Tomorrow, about this time, a sea of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seas of barkley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.

Then the captain, on whose hand the king leaned, said to the man of God, If the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?

But he said, You shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it. Now there were four men who were lepers at the entrance to the gate, and they said to one another, Why are we sitting here until we die?

If we say, Let us enter the city, the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians.

If they spare our lives, we shall live. And if they kill us, we shall but die. So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there.

For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of horses and chariots, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us.

So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents and their horses and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives.

And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them.

Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them. Then they said to one another, We are not doing right.

This is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let us go, and tell the king's household.

So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but horses tied and donkeys tied and the tents as they were.

Then the gatekeepers called out, and it was told within the king's household. And the king rose in the night and said to his servants, I will tell you what the Syrians have done.

They know that we are hungry. Therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking when they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.

And one of the servants said, Let some men take five of the remaining horses, seeing that those of us who are left here will fare like the whole multitude of Israel who have already perished.

Let us send and see. So they took two horsemen, and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying, Go and see. So they went after them as far as the Jordan, and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipments that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste.

And the messengers returned and told the king. Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a sea of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seas of barkley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord.

Now the king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. And the people trampled him in the gate, so that he died, as the man of God had said when the king came down to him.

For when the man of God had said to the king, Two seas of barley shall be sold for a shekel, and a sea of fine flour for a shekel, about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria, the captain had answered the man of God, If the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?

And he had said, You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it. And so it happened to him. For the people trampled him in the gate, and he died.

Let's pray. Father, as we come to passages in Scripture, even very troubling ones like this, Father, let us see what you are doing. Let us learn about you and your ways.

Help us, Lord, to see Christ as we should in all of Scripture, even in these pages here. And we pray this together in Jesus' name. Amen.

I'm glad there's no baby dedications this week. Is that a disturbing story? I mean, there's a reason maybe why I wanted to go all the way into chapter 7.

I mean, I think they go together. But boy, if we had stopped at chapter 6, how horrific. Well, let's back up a second and just kind of set the stage because if you were with us last week, the last thing we heard from the Syrians is that they had stopped sending their raiding bands into Israel.

And they have. But the Syrian threat very much still hangs over Israel. It seems like at any minute, the facade of this uneasy peace is going to drop.

And that's exactly what happens here on this day as our king is looking out from Samaria's walls and seeing the entire Syrian army mustered in the valley below.

In verse 1, we meet our king and all of his people, at least those who are still alive, in this besieged city. They're behind the walls, totally surrounded by King Ben-Hadad and his massive Syrian force.

Now, we have to understand that Samaria, the city of Samaria, is built up on a hill. They say it rises about 300 feet above the valleys below.

There are valleys on three sides. I've got a map you can see. And the walls of this city, the walls made it pretty much impenetrable. The only problem was, although you could keep your enemies out, those walls were also really effective at keeping you in.

And they are under siege. Not only are they under siege, we'll also remember that the land of Israel is experiencing a great famine. In fact, in another chapter, chapter 8, we're going to learn that this is now a seven-year famine and they are toward the end of it.

There has been a severe drought, so that the food supply has literally dried up in the land. And things look very grim. And now with the Syrians having surrounded and besieged the city for who knows how long, things are at their very worst.

People are dying. And the situation is very dire. Verse 25 gives us a glimpse into the conditions inside the city. The conditions are so bad that the exquisite cuisine of the day is donkey's head.

I have seen a few donkeys. I am not aware of them having much meat on their head. It does not sound very good to eat, but it's fetching 80 shekels of silver for that.

That's about seven years' worth of wages, which tells us that it's only the rich who are literally spending their life savings for a simple meal of donkey's head.

Times are tough. So tough that we're not even sure that this cab of dove's dung or really pigeon manure, we're not sure if it's fetching five shekels of silver, which is five months' wages, so that people can burn it for fuel or actually eat that too.

Well, our king is up there one day walking the walls of his besieged city, probably surveying the defenses, wondering what he's going to do.

And in verse 26, we're told that a woman cried out to him for help. Help, my lord, O king. And our king, Jehoram, is basically like, Help, what are you talking about?

What kind of help could I possibly give you? I mean, if the Lord won't help you, and he's clearly not helping any of us, what do you want me to do for you?

Threshing floor, wine press, you know everything's totally gone. We are completely tapped out. It's funny how our king's first reaction is to not only get cynical and rebuff this woman's cry for help, he actually blames the Lord for the situation, doesn't he?

It's God's fault. He is choosing not to help us. Why would our king think this? Well, it could be because he was familiar with the law, with the terrible covenant curses that he is actually witnessing before his very eyes

that Moses once described in Deuteronomy 28. See, back in Deuteronomy 28, we read that if God's people abandoned the Lord and worshipped idols, which is exactly what the people have done under Ahab and his boys,

they should expect the worst of the covenant curses to come to pass. From drought and famine, to disease and pestilence, to foreign invasion and occupation, along with all the horrors you can imagine, the brutality, the enslavement and death that go with it.

They were warned. Here's what it says in Deuteronomy 28, verse 52. They shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land.

Deuteronomy 28:52

But it's perhaps even worse as the curse goes on to describe what will happen in those cities like mighty Samaria where the walls don't come down.

Here's the desperate and horrific measures that the fine citizens of Israel will resort to. Deuteronomy 28, verse 53. And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you in the siege and in the distress

Deuteronomy 28:53

with which your enemies shall distress you. Cannibalism. But worse than just cannibalism generally, the passage actually goes on to speak in shocking terms about what these otherwise normal, sweet mothers and fathers would resort to doing to their own families.

Here's what it goes on to say in verse 54. The man who is the most tender and refined among you will begrudge food to his brother, to the wife he embraces, and to the last of the children whom he has left, so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he is eating,

because he has nothing left. And not just those tender fathers. The warnings of the curse go further. Deuteronomy 28, verses 56 and 57. Listen to this.

Deuteronomy 28:56

The most tender and refined woman among you who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender will begrudge the husband she embraces to her son and to her daughter her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears

because lacking everything she will eat them secretly. Absolutely horrific and disgusting. Disturbing warnings even to read about, even to hear about hypothetically.

And that's what it was in Deuteronomy 28. It was hypothetical. This could happen. But our king's ears are hearing some words that he could only wish were hypothetical.

But they're real. He asked the woman, what's your trouble? The answer he gets is this. Is my neighbor and I made a deal that we would cook and eat both of our sons.

So we ate his son yesterday, but when it came time, we ate my son yesterday, but when it came time to eat her son, she broke the deal. She went off and hit her son.

And I want justice. How demented and desperate is she? Not just that you would resort to cannibalizing your own child, entering into some kind of unthinkable demonic deal to do the same with your neighbor's kid the next day.

She has literally come to the king to plead for justice in this matter. Calling for the king to intervene and I guess compel her neighbor to force her to fork over her own son for dinner.

And now she's had second thoughts and apparently hidden her son. But she's literally, this woman is asking the king for help to murder a child to eat.

You know, I've studied scripture for a lot of years now and I am honestly not aware that there is another more disturbing account in scripture than this one right here.

Well, at this point, our king, basically loses it. We're told in verse 30 that when he heard the words of this woman, he is completely devastated.

He tore his clothes and the interesting thing that our narrator points out is that underneath his clothes, like a superhero or something, only not that, but he's wearing something else.

Sackcloth. Which is very strange. These are clothes of lament. Clothes of mourning. Public mourning. You're supposed to be seen in sackcloth.

You're not supposed to hide it. He's totally unprepared to hear what this woman's warped and diabolical request is to hear of this atrocity.

And the only response he can think of is to rend his clothes and he reveals underneath that he's got sackcloth on. He rends his clothes rather than render a judgment.

And in revealing that he's wearing sackcloth, it really makes us wonder, well, what is going on in his mind and heart? I mean, he's a godless king for the most part.

Is this a glimpse that he has in this time of the siege been turning to Yahweh? Or is it more like a hedge your bets kind of strategy?

Well, I don't think we have to wonder because the king goes on to reveal the state of his heart as he now expresses his intentions toward God's man.

He just got done telling the woman, you know, I don't even know where God is. He doesn't care. He's not doing anything for us. And now he's thinking about God's man who happens to be right there in the city during the siege, himself locked up in his house.

And so our king publicly swears, may God do so to me and more also if the head of Elisha is still on his shoulders by the end of today. And just like that with a Jezebel-like oath on his lips and that's his mother, our vindictive king

has proven himself his mother's son by swearing to kill God's prophets. He wants to attribute all the city's troubles to Elisha. As one scholar accurately puts it, he's not in the mood for repentance, he's more in the mood for murder.

Like his father Ahab, like son Jehoram, literally thinks that God's prophet is the troubler of Israel and he wants to separate the head of that troubler from his shoulders.

Meanwhile, back at the house, right? Verse 32. The scene shifts and we go to Elisha's house and he seems to be hosting the elders of Israel.

Well, that's nice. Maybe they're having some tea and crumpets or something, right? No, there's nothing to eat in the city. Most scholars think they're probably having a prayer meeting.

Whatever they're doing, all of a sudden, there's a knock at the, I'm sorry, before there's a knock at the door, all of a sudden, Elisha speaks up before the knock and he says to the elders, do you see how this murderer has sent someone to take my head off?

Listen, he's dispatched an executioner for me and when he gets here in just a moment, would you guys mind shutting the door and barring it until his master, the king, shows up himself?

What it tells us is that there's an assassin that's been dispatched and he's going to arrive there first, but the king is behind him. And Elisha's not trying to, you know, he's not going to be able to hold the door against the king and his forces, but he's trying to buy a little bit of time.

And the way that he refers to Jehoram is kind of interesting too. Literally in the Hebrew, it's son of a murderer. Son of a murderer. And we don't know if that's because of what his father Ahab is like, who murdered a man for his vineyard, if you remember, or whether this is a reference to what his mother is like,

who herself had murdered so many prophets. Either way, both are true. And honestly, this slur, which Elisha uses, is really a pretty good assessment of the king's character and his intentions at this moment.

You're wondering right now, you know, is Elisha scared? Is he sitting there in the house when he asks the elders to hold the door, to bar the door?

Is he panicking? Is God's mighty prophet the one who Jedi mind tricks his way out of trouble with entire armies, right? Is he somehow panicking at the threat of Israel's king sending an assassin to take his head off?

No. He's prescient. He knows what's coming moments before it comes. He knows what's going to happen. And I would imagine that no sooner have the words gotten out of his mouth than, you know, a few of the older elders are getting up and moving toward the door.

And I would imagine there's a big bang on the door. A knock, knock. A shout from outside. And what he hears is a message in the king's own words.

Verse 33, This trouble is from the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?

Wait for the Lord. It kind of makes us wonder if maybe our king has been listening a bit to our prophet. Maybe this isn't the first time during the siege he's made his way to this house.

Here he is wearing sackcloth, secretly though, under his regular clothes. He's been waiting. But he's now saying, I'm done with that. This is it.

This is enough. I will wait no more. And somehow, at some point, the king himself seems to arrive here between verse 33 and verse 1 of chapter 7.

He arrives in time to hear the prophetic oracle that now comes from Elisha's mouth. Chapter 7, verse 1. Hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord, Tomorrow, about this time, a sea of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel and two seas of Barclay for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.

Now, these aren't exactly, scholars tell us, these are not exactly normal prices. It's still pretty inflated. But it's a lot better, a lot closer to normal.

It's a big step toward business as usual. And he says, it's going to happen by this time tomorrow, less than 24 hours from now. So that, within less than a day, it's only going to cost you about a week's worth of wages to feed your family for a week.

And there will be commerce in the city gate again, like normal. And of course, what that means is that there's actually going to be some goods and produce to actually be bought and sold in the city.

But, but that would take a miracle. And that's exactly what our captain blurts out, the right hand man to the king. Only he says it with cynicism, with almost mockery in his voice.

Are you nuts? If the Lord himself were to open the windows of heaven, open it for rain, could this be a thing? Is it even possible? What he's thinking is that if it did start raining right away, that it's going to take time.

You know, if a miracle were to happen like it did not too long ago with the predecessor of Elisha, with Elijah, where the rains were withheld and then they suddenly came, he's thinking, well, you need a whole cycle of plant.

And growing and harvesting. Not to mention, you're going to have to be able to go outside these city walls and we're still under siege. We've got those hostile Syrians out there.

Are you crazy? But Elisha calmly replies, and it's another word from the Lord, you shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.

Our scene shifts again in verse 3. Still the same day, moving toward evening. But we move from the highest levels of leadership inside the walls of the city to its lowliest outcasts

who remain stuck outside. Although they aren't very far outside, we're told that four lepers are staying pretty close to the gate. It makes sense with an invading army nearby.

And they're as close to the gate as they can be. They're right there at the entrance and they're talking. And one of them says, you know, we keep sitting here and we are going to die.

Of course, there's really no sense in trying to force our way inside the city because there's just death in there too. And you know what? If we go over to the Syrian camp, we will most likely die there.

So it's certain death out here, certain death inside, probable death, maybe life, if we go to the Syrians. And they all vote Syrians. And in the twilight of the on-setting dusk, what they do is they sneak off to the outskirts of the enemy camp.

Once there, strange. There's not a soul in sight. There's a bunch of workhorses milling around, some donkeys, I imagine some chickens. But there's no people.

And I'm sure these hungry men took one look at all those supplies and rations and were thinking, forget the garments, the food. Oh, the food.

And I'm guessing that's what they dug into first inside that first abandoned tent. And then they find the treasure and next thing you know, they're hauling it off and hiding it in their stash somewhere.

And then they come back. What the lepers don't know and what only we as readers know is that just moments before in the same twilight of the dusk and with impeccable divine timing, here's what's happened.

Verse 6, The Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, behold, the king of Israel has hired mercenaries, the kings of the Hittites, the kings of Egypt, to come and fight against us.

Yes, again, with perfect timing as our lepers, you can almost see it, the lepers are coming into one side of the camp even as the last of the Syrians are fleeing out the other side of the camp, supernaturally deceived into thinking there's an army that's upon them, duped by the sounds of heaven.

They literally abandon camp and leave everything behind. Verse 8 tells us that the lepers, they plunder one tent, they plunder a second, carrying off all the loot, coming back for more, and then maybe it's about when they're halfway through the third tent, we're not sure,

but finally one of them gets a heavy conscience, and he says to the others, you know what, what we're not doing, what we're doing is not right.

Verse 9, this isn't right. This is a day of good news, and we've got to get this good news to all the people of Samaria right away. We can't just plunder and eat and drink to our heart's content and wait for them to find out sometime later tomorrow.

No, we've got to go tell it on the mountain. We've got to go tell the king's household right now. And that's exactly what they do in verse 10.

They call to the city's gatekeepers. The gatekeepers in turn relay the news to the king's household. But the king, I imagine he's still in his night robe or whatever it is he sleeps in.

He wakes up and his first reaction is suspicion. He says to himself and to his advisors, I know what this is. It's a trap. It's an ambush. Those Syrians know how we're starving.

And they've gone out of the camp to go hide themselves in the open country. And as soon as our emaciated people come into their encampment, they're going to pounce upon us and grab us up real easy and have our city.

Whole armies don't just disappear in the night. It's a trick. It's an ambush.

Yes, even in view of Elisha's prediction, just the day prior, our king still cannot muster the slightest ounce of faith at all. He assumes the worst and he swears that he won't take the bait.

But one of his servants, right? Remember Naaman? One of his servants too? One of his servants. Thank the Lord for servants like this. But in verse 13, he convinces him.

He says to his king, you know, we've really got nothing to lose. He kind of sounds like the lepers here. You don't want us all to go out, that's fine, but can we at least send a few men?

A couple of chariots with another mounted soldier to lead them. We have five remaining horses, right? And really what he's doing here, like those lepers, is he's simply using his common sense.

He figures, you know, we can spare five more, we're all going to die anyway. If we stay here, we're all going to die for sure. What if there is something to this crazy report?

Just like that, the scouting party is quietly dispatched into the night. They come to the abandoned camp, they find everything as described by those lepers.

But just to be sure, they go on and track the retreating army all the way to the Jordan River. It's many miles away. And what they find all along the way, verse 15 says, it's just littered with garments, with equipment, with supplies that the Syrians had thrown away in their

haste. They're probably saying, these scouts, either these Syrians are really, really crazy good at faking, or, yeah, they have left. So they bring the good news back to the palace in verse 16, and once the news gets out to the

people, it is pandemonium. The people flock out of the camp, out of the city, I should say, into the camp, and they plunder its spoils. Our narrator is careful to tell us, though, or more like remind us of those prophetic words from Elisha, back in verse 16,

about the prices of things now that Elisha prophesied in verse 1, about how prices would become more normal, about how people would be loading up their arms in their carts with all these goods, rushing them back to the city gate, someone over here has got silver, someone over here has got barley,

you've got some gold, I've got some flour, and what happens is they begin to barter and exchange in the gate in a mad rush. But speaking of the gate, we've got our captain, he's been appointed to keep charge of what's going on.

Verse 17, we find that he's not really in charge of anything, because in the mob's excitement, the people trampled him in the gates so that he died as the man of God had said when the king came down to him.

In fact, the last three verses kind of repeats it all, doesn't it? It's almost as if the narrator really wants you and I to get that point, to drive it home about how the prophecy was made back in verse 1, and how the cynical officer mocked it, and yet nevertheless, the man of God's words

were fulfilled. They did not fail.

This is a really crazy story, and I think it's safe to say there are some wild turns of events, plural. You've got a siege, a demented request for justice, garment tearing, door-barring threats,

prophecies, and what happens is it all seems to hinge on the fateful decision from a few local leper outcasts who are out there in front of the gate reasoning that we might as well take our chances with the Syrians.

And yet, through it all, the Lord works. through it all, every word of the Lord is proven true.

This morning, I think there are a number of insights that we can gather, we can observe from our story this morning, and I would just like to touch on a few of them with you.

So, if you want to take some notes, I'm going to offer you five observations. Can we do that? Five observations, starting with the first one, and it's this.

When crisis hits, bad reactions include blaming, lashing out, and disbelieving God. When crisis hits, bad reactions include blaming, lashing out, and disbelieving God.

Of course, this is our king, Jehoram, front and center, walking those walls. Yeah, maybe wearing some sackcloth underneath, but not openly, because he doesn't, he doesn't really believe.

He doesn't want to make a public fashion statement to everybody watching that I do believe in Yahweh, I am waiting for Yahweh. He does it secretly, because he doesn't really believe.

And although he's wearing sackcloth, he's not really repentant. He's just scared. And he's basically hedging his bets. And when a very terrible, horrific thing comes to his attention, he freaks out.

But rather than believe God or his prophet, what he does when he freaks out, is he reacts by blaming. He reacts by lashing out. I want the prophet's head.

It's his fault. I'm done waiting for the Lord. even after the Assyrians have fled supernaturally because of God's deliverance, even after they're gone and the king gets the news that the camp is empty and well supplied, he still can't bring himself to believe anything.

He still doubts. He remains completely obtuse to God's miraculous work. And all he can say to his advisors is, I know it, I know it, it's a trap.

And then there's also his right hand man, the captain. Let's not forget him, right? Because he too hears the prophetic word and he doesn't just disbelieve it, he actually mocks it to his own personal doom.

let this be a lesson to each of us, that these are bad ways to react when crisis hits us in our life. To blame, to lash out, to disbelieve God, bad reactions.

That's one observation, but let me give you a second one, number two. This one might be obvious. Number two, the Lord can plunder the enemy's camp to supply the needs of his people.

the Lord can plunder the enemy's camp to supply the needs of his people.

If you're familiar with the Bible and the Old Testament, you might know, you might remember, this is not the first time that this has happened.

Think about the Exodus under Moses, how after those ten plagues, the people, they were literally told, they were instructed, ask the Egyptian neighbors you have for their expensive gifts on the way out, for their valuables.

Here's what it says in Exodus 12 36. Here's what happened. And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, that's one way to say it, favor, so that they let them have what they asked.

Thus, they plundered the Egyptians. You could call it reparations, right? For slavery. Because that's what they were, they were their slaves.

Those who had enslaved them, their enemies, being plundered by the people of God. And the same thing happens here. From starvation to plenty, plenty of food and drink, silver, gold, clothing, horses, donkeys, all the goods of a fully equipped army.

Listen, when an invading army besieges a city, they come with a lot of supplies. Because they're going to outlast you who are on the inside.

And yet, this enemy camp today gets plundered by the Israelites without so much as a shout or an arrow. The only finger they have to lift is to carry all that plunder back inside their walls.

But the Lord, and only the Lord, can do a thing like this. He can plunder the enemy's camp to supply the needs of his people. I don't know in what situation, present, past, future, you might need to be reminded of that, but hear that today.

Our next observation goes right along with it. Number three. Number three. The Lord typically delivers, not by might or power, but by the things that are not.

the things that are not. Any of that. The Lord typically delivers not by might or power, but by the things that are not. But did the king have some grand plan or

strategy that delivered Samaria? No. was his threat to assassinate Elisha what triggered the city's rescue? Hardly. And really neither was it the four lepers of our story, these

outcasts. What they were, were simply the means that God used. In their ordinary common sense thinking, they're like die out here, die in there, at least we might have a chance if we just turn ourselves over to the Syrians.

No might, no power of their own, the things that are not.

In fact, you know what the Lord actually used to deliver his people? Think about it. Sound.

Sounds. One scholar says, wind and echoes. The fake sound of a great army that wasn't there. Sounding like a multitude of chariots and horses.

And the message of salvation that came to the ears of these gatekeepers, it was brought by the lowliest members of society, right? It was brought by outcasts.

People who weren't even allowed the privilege to dying inside the city because they were lepers, because they were unclean. But God often chooses to do things like this, to work in these kinds of ways.

The apostle Paul knew this, which is what led him to write this to some otherwise proud Christians in the city of Corinth. Here's 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 28.

1 Corinthians 1:28

Paul writes, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Of course, for you and me today, he chose the most low and most despised, the ultimate thing that was not to deliver, a Jewish peasant condemned to die on a shameful Roman cross.

That's how our deliverance came. Talk about foolishness. That's what it was to the mind of the highbrow Greek. Talk about weakness and lowliness.

That's what the mighty minded Romans thought. Remember this morning, it wasn't the king who saved his people, nor was it the city officials.

It was not the government that saved the people. It wasn't even the rest of the country of Israel rising up and coming to the rescue of the city of Samaria.

None of that. And that should be a good check for any of us who might be tempted in the wake of a national election and an impending major change in government that we dare not put our hopes in government.

We pray for our leaders, but we do not put our hopes in them. Because a story like this one stands as a stark reminder that yes, even whole governments with all their powers, they're really powerless to save anybody.

Only God saves. only God delivers.

And speaking of deliverance, let's make a fourth observation, number four. Number four, deliverance is good news, but evangelists need to proclaim it.

Deliverance is good news, but evangelists need to proclaim it.

Verse nine again, what is it that our lepers say to each other? They say, we are not doing right. This is a day of good news. How can we sit on it ourselves?

Good news, you know another word for good news, we find it frequently in the New Testament, is the word gospel. Good news, gospel. And when it's news of your deliverance, of there being a means available to save you, and all you have to do is come out and

get it, that is very good news. But, but, people need to proclaim it. good news, and today, these people who did proclaim this good news, what the Greek word, the Greek word for good news is evangelion,

we call them evangelists, proclaimers of good news, evangelists. And you know, in many ways, that's what our four lepers are, they are four evangelists.

things.

So the question I would ask you this morning, if you've experienced the benefits of salvation, are you proclaiming good news? How so? To whom and where are you proclaiming good news?

Do you remind yourself this morning that yes, I am but one leper among others? One unclean person in desperate need among others? If you found your salvation, you need to share that news with others.

Don't we have a responsibility? Is that not what the lepers felt as they're sitting there eating and drinking and plundering? What we're doing, keeping it to ourselves, this isn't right.

We can't sit on the good news. We can't hide it under a bowl or haul it off and keep it secretly. how can we do that when there are so many who are desperate for it?

When there are so many who otherwise will die without hope, without this news? all of us who have experienced the blessing of our deliverance spiritually, if you're here this morning and you have tasted and drank from the bread of life, from the living water for your soul,

you need to proclaim this good news. I need to proclaim this good news. And finally, one last observation before we finish, and we would be remiss if we didn't mention this, number five, the word of the Lord is certain,

reliable, and it never fails. The word of the Lord is certain, reliable, and it never fails. there's a lot of repetition in this story that we read, and probably the most obvious is

what comes at the end. I think this is why the narrator devotes the closing verses of chapter seven to repeating almost verbatim the prophecy we heard in verse one, to show us that the word of the Lord through Elisha about the prices that there would be for flour and barley in the city gate,

they had come true. The word of the Lord forecasted deliverance, and deliverance is what happened. The word of the Lord also forecasted a very unfortunate fate for one man, the right hand man to the king, and that proved true as well.

The word proved certain and reliable, and it did not fail.

You know, some years before this, many years, there was another Israelite king who prayed a very special prayer, at a temple dedication, and this is what Solomon prayed, this is what Solomon knew in 1 Kings chapter 8 verse 56, he says, Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his

1 Kings 8:56

people Israel according to all that he promised, not one word has failed of all his good promise which he spoke by Moses his servant. Not one word has failed.

It's echoed in the Proverbs 2 Proverbs chapter 30 verse 5 reads, Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

Proverbs 30:5

Or as the prophet Isaiah would later write in Isaiah chapter 55, he would say, Just as sure as the rains come from heaven to make things grow, verse 11, chapter 55, verse 11, So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth.

Isaiah 55 · chapter mention

It shall not return to me empty.

Do you believe that right now? That the word of the Lord is certain and reliable and that it never fails? If you're here as a parent this morning and with those little books and those conversations and those prayers and combing the matted hair to take them to church or whatever it is you have to do, do you

believe that you're sowing seeds of God's word that will not fail?

The world's going to throw stuff at us that will besiege us and surround us at times. There will be many tests, many trials in life, I don't have to tell you, and they will challenge your commitment to this truth at every turn.

You might even hear powerful people, influential people who doubt God's word, who disbelieve God's word, maybe even mock God's word, but the word of the Lord is certain, it is reliable, and it never,

never fails.

Let's thank God for that this morning. Would you stand with me? Let's bow our heads and have a moment of prayer. Let's take a moment, just reflect on maybe one or two of these observations this morning.

Father, we have seen some incredible deliverance here back thousands of years ago in this account of a horrific situation that actually happened.

It wasn't hypothetical. It's not a fable. And yet, Lord, you have seen fit to record it in your word for your people. Whether it was people who originally read it and were living in exile in Babylon, or people right now here in 2024 who are living in exile as

foreigners and strangers in this country. But we know that your promises can be trusted, that not one word will fail to come about. And so, Lord, we just pray that you would anchor us in that this morning.

Let it be a hope that anchors our soul when the storms of life besiege us. When the waves come over the deck and slap us in the face. When we're in a situation, a moment where it feels like there is no way out, remind us, Lord, that you are a God who

hears, that you are a God who works, and you work beyond our power and ability. You do it in yours. And we are thankful. Lord, if nothing else, Lord, the cross and the empty tomb remind us that you do what people didn't expect.

Who in Israel in the first century expected a crucified Savior? We know they should have because we have the benefit of prophecy, Lord. We can read your word and now it all makes sense, but who was expecting a suffering servant?

A resurrected Messiah who came not to restore simply an earthly kingdom, but to build a spiritual kingdom for generation upon generation upon generation.

And Lord, we're a part of that this morning, so help us in our own little sphere of responsibility in whatever that little realm of influence is or big realm of influence is that we might have.

Help us, Father, to anchor ourselves in You and in the atoning death of Jesus and in the sure and certain promise that He will come again. And we pray all of this in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said, Amen.