Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Here's what's ahead of us on Hope from the Word. Sometimes we underestimate God. Most of the time we underestimate God. Maybe all the time. We pray about our petty little problems, which seem so major in our eyes. We ask God to solve this problem and that problem and the other problem. Then we often give God advice on how to do it.

We pray for the sick. "Oh God, please guide the surgeon's hands, and please let the medicine work, and please let this happen and please let that." I'm not going to tell you not to pray anyway that you feel led, but it seems like so many times God works just in a different way every time. Unique. Nothing we would have thought of.

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Give me one pure and holy passion. Give me one magnificent obsession. Give me one glorious ambition for my life, to know and follow hard after you.

We often place our own human limitations on God. We think to ourselves, "This is a really hard problem. I can't see a way out." But nothing is too hard for God. Or as Jesus said, "With God all things are possible."

Today on Hope from the Word, we hear an example of God working the impossible. We have our plans and they are based on our ability, but God has His own plans on how He will work things out and they are based on His ability. That's where we begin today's Hope from the Word. From Second Kings, chapter seven and verse eight, here's Pastor Bill.

Bill Luebkemann: God made this whole thing come about and they fled in the dusk. Now, these lepers had gone there in the dusk and these people had fled in the dusk. So maybe somehow as the four guys were walking, God amplified the sound of their footsteps and made it louder also.

They abandoned everything: their tents and even their animals, their horses and their donkeys. They left the camp as it was. They left the lights on, the TVs on, the fires burning. They took off and they ran for their lives.

The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank and carried away silver, gold, and clothes and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also.

So these lepers go into a tent and they help themselves. They open up the fridge; it's loaded. They're starving, these guys. They eat and drink and they have their fill and then they decide, "Hey, finders keepers, losers weepers. Let's ransack this place." We may be the first ones here, but we're not going to be the only ones here. Other people are going to find this place eventually.

So they carted off some of the booty: some of the gold, some silver, and some clothes, and they hid them. Then they came back and they got some more and they hid them also. They were just looking out for themselves. Then it dawned on them that there's a whole city of starving people back there in Samaria. Here we are taking all this booty, and how much could four guys take from a whole camp? Obviously, they didn't take that much.

Then they said to each other, "We're not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let's go at once and report this to the royal palace." So, dusk here was evening, and they said, "Oh boy, we can't keep this news to ourselves. We've got to share it with the rest of the city. All those other people are hungry and starving also."

Isn't it amazing? A hungry and starving city and they didn't even know their salvation was near at hand. Right outside their city was a whole camp full of food that was empty, and they didn't know it. They were inside the city starving to death, and right outside, not too far away, was this camp loaded with food, gold, silver, clothes, all stocked up, no one there, free for the taking. They didn't know it. They were starving to death while their salvation was right outside. They were unaware of it, just like the world today is unaware, it seems, that their salvation is just a short distance away. So many people seem to be unaware they even need any kind of salvation.

They realized we've got to spread this good news. If we don't do it, punishment is going to come back. It's going to come back to us somehow. Let's go tell the king about this. So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers. Now remember, they're not allowed in the city, so they hang out by the gate. But they could call out to the city gatekeepers.

So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, "We went into the Aramean camp and not a man was there. Hello, gatekeeper, can you hear me? Hello, I'm out here." You think the gatekeeper probably said, "Shut up, you leper. Get lost." But they told him, "We went into the Aramean camp and not a man was there. We went into their camp. There was no one there, not a sound of anyone, only tethered horses and donkeys and the tents left just as they were."

The gatekeepers shouted the news and it was reported within the palace. This went through the grapevine, so to speak, was relayed through the official system—flashing lights, smoke signals, beacons, whatever. The gatekeeper relayed it to the next guy on duty at the palace. "Hurry, wake up the king."

The king got up in the night and said to his officers, "I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving, so they have left the camp to hide in the countryside thinking they will surely come out and then we will take them alive and get into the city." So the king right away says, "It's a trick. It's a trap."

He doesn't think to himself, "Maybe God's giving him deliverance." He doesn't think to himself, "We went to see the prophet earlier today. Maybe God's going to deliver us." He doesn't think to himself, "I wonder if this is somehow related to what that prophet told us." He's not home praying for God to show him what is the meaning of what that prophet told us.

The prophet told him his problems are going to be over in 24 hours and here he is saying, "This is a trick. A trap. They're going to hide. They know we're starving, so they are hiding and they're waiting and they're watching. They're going to hope that we're all going to come out and when we all come out, then they'll quick surprise us, attack us, get rid of us, and then they'll have access to our city because we'll have left the door open."

One of his officers answered, "Have some men take five of the horses that are in the city. Their plight will be like that of all the Israelites left here. Yes, they will only be like all these Israelites who are doomed. So let us send them to find out what happened." So some of his officers said, "Look, at least send out a scouting party to find out what's going on."

Now, they didn't probably have very many animals that were in any condition to go anywhere. Their animals were dead. If they weren't dead, they were all skin and bone. They were hardly able to walk. So there were very few animals that could do this, but one of the officers said, "Look, have some men take five of the horses and go check this out. Their plight will be like that of all the Israelites left here."

In other words, he was saying the same thing the lepers said to each other. "Send some men to check this out. Look, if they get trapped or tricked and they get killed, they're going to be no worse off than if they stayed here. This is the same exact logic that the lepers used. At least go check it out with a few guys. You're not risking much. If you don't check it out, we're all going to die here. Send a few guys out; you can even ask for volunteers maybe."

So they selected two chariots with their horses and the king sent them after the Aramean army. He commanded the drivers, "Go and find out what has happened." They followed them as far as the Jordan and they found the whole road strewn with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown away in their headlong flight.

The messengers returned and reported to the king. Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of flour sold for a shekel and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, as the Lord had said. So these guys go out on some chariots and horses and they look around and they find that there's no one there. They follow the trail of litter all the way down to the Jordan, and the whole way they find litter.

They find these people were in such a hurry they were leaving behind clothing and equipment the whole way. Now, I assume this army was in the thousands, so that's a lot of clothing and equipment. They took with them what they could take, but the longer they were in such a hurry, they were running, they were out of breath. "Get rid of this coat. Get rid of this piece of equipment. Leave this behind. Leave that behind." The road was littered all the way back to the Jordan River.

This search party comes back to the king and reports back to him. "They're not there, King. They're nowhere to be found. They are gone, gone, gone. And their stuff is littered everywhere. Whatever reason they're gone, we don't know, but they left a mess behind them. They must have gotten a late-night call from home saying come home right away." And the people unlock the city gate, run over to the camp, and plunder it.

The price of food went way down, just like the prophet said. God was able to bring salvation in a very unlikely way. Look, this king's assistant at the beginning of the chapter who doubted whether this could happen, he may have thought, "The only way this is going to happen is through a battle and we don't have the resources. So we can't really fight a battle."

Or maybe God could work through a battle. He could give us a victory. The only problem is we're really weak right now, so He probably won't do that. Maybe God will bring us some allies who could fight with us, some mercenaries. Only problem is we don't have any money to pay any mercenaries. We don't have any way to contact them. We don't really have anybody that likes us or is on our side, so He probably won't do that.

As we said at the beginning, this fellow was limiting the way God might work in this situation, like we all have a tendency to do. We think that God's going to work the way we would work, or we think God's going to do something the way that we think it should be done, or the way that appears the most clear to us with our human eyes.

Remember, Gehazi couldn't see all those chariots of fire parked all the way around the city there when they were surrounded. God's plan is often totally different and completely out of left field when compared to whatever we might be thinking of. And we're thinking, "Why doesn't God do it this way?" and He says, "No, I'm going to do it this other way." "Well, how come you're going to do it that way?" "Because I can. Because I'm God and you're not and I'm just going to remind you of that by doing it this other way."

Now, the king had put the officer on whose arm he leaned on in charge of the gate. Somebody suggested this was a punishment, but I don't know that that's necessarily true. And the people trampled him in the gateway and he died, just as the man of God had foretold when the king came down to his house. It happened as the man of God had said to the king. "About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria."

The officer had said to the man of God, "Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?" The man of God had replied, "You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it." And that is exactly what happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gateway and he died.

Now, you could read that and say, "Well, that's pretty preposterous believing that people could trample a guy in a gateway. That just really stretches my imagination." Well, hey, if that's what you're thinking, you need to read the news someday, because at least once a year people get trampled to death at sporting events somewhere in the world. Usually not in America. I guess in America we know how to do crowd control better than other places.

But there are cases people getting trampled to death in sporting events routinely. It makes the news. Usually just a few people that are in the wrong place at the wrong time or maybe just one. Well, this was just one guy at the gate and he was obviously there and these people were hungry. I don't know if he was trying to check their passports or look at their IDs, or maybe he only wanted to let so many out at one time, or maybe he was being cautious or whatever.

He could have repented of his unbelief, I think. He could have said, "Wow, it's unbelievable. God really did this. Amazing. Praise God." But there's no record that he did that. He stood in the gate there and he got trampled to death by a bunch of hungry people who were in a hurry to go get their food. He heard about it, he knew it, he knew the food was cheap. He knew all these people were going. He never got to eat any of it. He died a hungry man.

Salvation was so close, but he never partook of it. He didn't put any faith into what the Lord was going to do. If he did, he believed the Lord was going to do it in some different way. And you see the same kind of people today whose salvation is near at hand if they would just accept Jesus into their life, but they don't do it. Some of them will eventually do it before they die and other ones, they may get trampled over.

They may die hungry, never having accepted the Lord. You can see a lot of parallels here to the way salvation works in this story. It's a free gift. It comes at the price that someone else paid. The free gift is from somewhere else outside the city and you have to go and partake of it and accept it. The food didn't come to them. These enemy soldiers didn't deliver it. They had to go and help themselves. Here's a guy that didn't and he paid the ultimate price. It would seem to be related to his unbelief.

Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, "Go away with your family and stay for a while wherever you can, because the Lord has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years." The woman proceeded to do as the man of God said. She and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines seven years. No idea really here on the timeline of when this happened. This could have happened seven years previously. It doesn't really say.

But Elisha had tipped off this woman. This was the woman who didn't have a son. She had made a house or a room in her house for Elisha to stay in, remember? Elisha wanted to do something nice for her and he said to Gehazi, he said to the woman, "What do you want?" She didn't want anything. He said to his servant Gehazi, "What can we do for this woman?" He said, "Well, she doesn't have a son." The Lord gave her a son. Elisha said to her, "You're going to have a son this time next year."

And you'll remember as the son grew to a young man, at some point he died. This woman, full of faith, put his body on a bed, didn't tell anybody, put him on Elisha's bed, actually. Got a servant and an animal, took off to find Elisha and made him come back. He prayed over this child and the Lord restored his health.

Now, some time has passed and Elisha has a good relationship with this woman and her husband and the son, no doubt. They have really helped him out a lot. As he was passing by the area, they let him stay in their house, even made this room for him, fed him. They shared lots of good times together and he wants to help her out. He tips her off and says, "Look, there's going to be a famine in the land. It's going to last seven years. So it would be best for you if you went somewhere else. It'd be a lot easier."

And so she packed up things and she went away to the land of the Philistines. She lived among the Philistines and put up with them for seven years because the famine, they weren't having a famine there or if they were, it wasn't as great. At the end of the seven years, she came back from the land of the Philistines and went to the king to beg for her house and land. She had left her house and land behind, so she lost it. After seven years she came back and she was going to seek the king and ask the king to kindly return to her her house and land.

The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and had said, "Tell me about all the great things Elisha has done." It just so happens that when this woman returns after seven years, the king just happens to be talking to Gehazi about Elisha. He says, "I want you to tell me about this guy Elisha." Now, I don't know why Gehazi, who was the corrupt servant who has leprosy, is talking to the king here. Some people are speculating this might have happened before he got the leprosy. Other people speculate maybe somehow the Lord forgave him and redeemed him and cleansed him of the leprosy. Other people speculate maybe he still had the leprosy and the king wasn't exactly sitting real close to him.

But it seemed like the king was at least interested in hearing about the things that Elisha has done. He told Gehazi, "Tell me about all the great things that Elisha has done." Unbeknownst to them, this woman is about to come in. Just as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, the woman whose son Elisha had brought back to life came to beg the king for her house and land.

Just as they were getting to that good part of the story, in walks the woman. So Gehazi is saying, "So there was this woman and you know, after the son was born and he grew and what have you, and he died. I remember still I was with Elisha, we were up on the mountain, and this woman came from a distance and she didn't look good. I ran out to greet her and she said everything was okay, but when she got to approach my master, she grabbed him by the leg and she was obviously in despair. And it turned out her son had died."

I can imagine the king saying, "Wow, what a shame that is. Wow, she didn't even have a son and now he died." "Yeah, but King, don't get too worried about it because Elisha and I went with her and Elisha prayed over him and now the Lord restored that boy and he's alive." "Really?" "Yeah, he's alive. He was dead. Are you sure he was really dead? Yeah, he was dead. He was dead. I've seen plenty of stiffs in my day, King, and that was one dead stiff. He was dead. And he came back to life again."

Just as the king was marveling at this story and Gehazi reliving these events, knock, knock, knock, the woman is at the door, this very woman. Can you see God's providence in this? Do you think that this woman could have planned it? If this woman was saying, "Oh Lord, please allow the king to give me back the land," do you think in a million years she ever would have thought to ask God, "Oh Lord, please let Gehazi, Elisha's servant, be there talking about me right as I walk in"? Do you think she would have even thought of that? Of course not.

Just as this happens, this woman shows up and Gehazi said, "Hey, that's her. That's her. I can't believe it. That's her." Gehazi said, "This is the woman, my Lord the king, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life." The king asked the woman about it and she told him. He says, "Come in, lady. I want to tell me about this. This guy was just telling me about tell me." And she tells him the same story.

He is so intrigued and fascinated by it, he gives her back everything she wanted. Then he assigned an official to her case and said to him, "Give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now." He says, "Give her back everything and even give her back the income that was made off of her land for the entire seven years."

Sometimes we underestimate God. Most of the time we underestimate God. Maybe all the time. We pray about our petty little problems, which seem so major in our eyes. We ask God to solve this problem and that problem and the other problem. Then we often give God advice on how to do it.

We pray for the sick. "Oh God, please guide the surgeon's hands, and please let the medicine work, and please let this happen and please let that." I'm not going to tell you not to pray anyway that you feel led, but it seems like so many times God works just in a different way every time. Unique. Nothing we would have thought of.

Who would have thought He would have made this army hear another army more powerful than theirs and that they would run away just because of an apparition or a sound that they heard? It doesn't say they saw them, by the way. Only they heard them.

And now who would have thought that as this story is being shared, this woman would have come right in? If you get anything out of these chapters here in Second Kings tonight, you should get this: that God is alive and well and doing things on His own plan and His own purpose. We can be praying and we can be asking God and we can be all worried about all the details, or we can relax and know that He's in charge and that He orders the steps of those who believe.

That is what the work of God is. The work of God is not for us to do things for God. It's not for us to do the work ourselves. The work of God, the Bible says, is this: to believe in the one He has sent. Then how He takes care of everything else. We can see that so clearly in these chapters in Second Kings here where time and again, God works out His will and His purposes, and He's still working out His will and His purposes in our lives tonight as we seek Him.

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Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope from the Word. We're currently in a study of Second Kings. You can hear this message and more Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet. Or if you prefer to listen via podcast, you can find Hope from the Word wherever you find your podcasts.

We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton, either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10:00 AM, and there's a Wednesday evening service at 7:00. To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org.

And if you'd take a moment to write to Pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us. We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives, and we want to pray for you too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662. We'll continue our study in Second Kings next time on Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.

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