Word of Salvation – Vol. 44 No.34 – September 1999

 

The Hope is in The Life

 

Sermon by Rev S Bajema

on 2 Kings 2:19-22

Scripture Readings: Luke 18:31-43; 2Kings 2:1-22

Suggested Hymns: BoW 207; 111:1-4,7; 392; 147:1, 2, 4, 5; 532

 

Beloved Saints in our Lord Jesus Christ…

Don’t you find that one of the hardest things to do is to actually begin to do something?  It’s not always so hard to have lots of facts and figures floating around in your mind, even to know what you would like your project to look like when it’s finished.  But to begin – that’s hard!

It can be like that with a sermon.  How can the preacher bring together both what this text is all about with where you as the congregation are at?  Naturally, we’re going to realise many more connections between us and the text, but to begin now in a way so that these words and us are joined together, there the subject of beginning something is itself most helpful.

You see, this is the beginning for Elisha, for his prophetic ministry, that is.  In the city of Jericho, just across the Jordan from where Elijah’s mantle had been passed on to him, Elisha is about to do his first miracle.

Now it was true that the school of prophets had seen the power of God’s Spirit continue through Elisha, when he parted the waters of the Jordan river.  They knew what was happening.  And it’s also true that those men of Jericho would have understood that Elisha now possessed the Spirit of the LORD which had been in Elijah.

But the kind of miracle Elisha is about to do is more than these.  In fact, a miracle is something that doesn’t only show God’s devastating power, but also, and most of all, it shows something about His salvation.  A miracle actually symbolises to us something of what God is doing for His people,

So what we’re about to see is the confirmation of God showing Himself to His people through Elisha; this miracle authenticates the word he is about to speak.  In other words, it proves he’s not a false prophet, along the lines of the standard Moses has told from the LORD.

What a way to begin.  Though, what’s even more enlightening is how each of God’s miracles are related to all of His miracles.  And each of those points to the very greatest miracle of all – none other than the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ!

But before this first miracle of Elisha takes place, we see the plea for mercy from the men of Jericho.  Congregation, that they actually approached Elisha in the first place, says a lot.  For the state of the nation is not good spiritually.  Years of being under the wicked King Ahab and his evil wife, Jezebel, had literally made those northern ten tribes, the nation of Israel, a stinking wasteland.

So the symbolism of the bad water and unproductive land of Jericho shouldn’t be lost on us.  It pictures a deeper disease – a spiritual one.

Some have pointed here to the curse that was placed upon Jericho by Joshua, in the book of Joshua, chapter 6, after Jericho has been razed to the ground, we have this solemn oath from Joshua: “Cursed before the LORD is the man who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho: At the cost of his firstborn son will he lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest will he set up its gates” (vs.26).

But we do read later in Joshua and in Judges 3 that the city was inhabited again; that area was even allotted to the tribe of Benjamin.  So we cannot assume that the curse of Elisha’s time is directly because of that.  What the LORD had really forbidden was Jericho being built up again as a fortress, a city with walls and gates that could be closed against an approaching enemy.

If that seems strange, if it appears as stupidity that the land of Canaan had to lie open at this side so that virtually anyone could march in, that tells us a lot about faith.  Israel had to trust the LORD; no military power whatsoever.  The same kind of reason why God specifically banned chariots from Israel’s army.  It’s why He gave Gideon the victory with just a few hundred men.

Congregation, the same faith that had the whole of Israel marching around Jericho all those years ago, for a whole week, was needed now, too!

About twelve years later a man would lose his eldest and youngest son because he tried to rebuild Jericho.  But now already Jericho, as the gateway to the nation, reflected the state of the nation.

In this connection it’s no coincidence that Luke 18 records the prediction by our Lord of His death just before Luke records his entry into Jericho.  Then we read, too, of one who needed healing.  He, too, cried out for mercy, as the people of Jericho did with Elisha.  The Lord Jesus made him whole, just as in our text He makes the environment well again.

You could almost call the prophet, ‘Elisha the Environmentalist’, since he restores that land.  For in a sense, sin has given us the pollution problems of today.

But the real anguish for those of Jericho was their barrenness – their women couldn’t bear children.  Their problem is that there’s no life; and without life, of course, there’s no spirit!  This is the root of the word “unproductive” in the NIV: it comes from to miscarry’, or ‘to abort’.  God’s people in their disobedience weren’t blessed.

In Exodus 23:26 there was God’s promise that none would miscarry or be barren in that land.  Yet, that was only if they listened carefully to the Word of the LORD and did it.

So what we have here are years of neglect.  Sin, which destroyed life; just as sin today does exactly the same.  Years of neglect which finally brought these people to their knees.  Then God is gracious.  He gives the symbols of grace.  And whatever we might think of the origin of the new bowl or the salt in this miracle, it certainly shows a cleansing or break with the past.  Whether it sealed the renewal of the covenant, or some kind of purifying, it pictures a saving act of God for His people.

Certainly salt was familiar to the Israelites, especially to Jericho which was so close to the very salty Dead Sea.  And salt had always been associated with their sacrifices to the LORD.  Jesus also quoted the rule about this in Mark 9.

Then, there was a ‘covenant of salt’.  In this case the salt represented a long-lasting friendship, just as it made the food at the solemn meal of the treaty last for a long time.  It was a symbol of faithfulness and loyalty; it showed the everlasting character typifying the covenant with the LORD

Graeme Goldsworthy makes the point:

“To drink of the purified spring was in itself to partake of the life that God provided for his people.  To take of the water of life is to have life itself.  The orientation of the pure spring is Christ Himself, not the heart of the believer.  God graciously provides the pure water of life in the place of the cursed.  Christ – who is the LORD, the covenant God, the self-revelation of the divine among His people – He is the fulfiller of the place where God keeps His people in eternal life.  Canaan and all its fullness is in Christ.”

Congregation, how much more shouldn’t we see now beyond the sign of the new bowl and the salt to the sign of where Christ was going as He travelled that final time through Jericho?  That’s the sign of the cross; the symbol of the cursed death Jesus would die for us so we may drink from the eternal fountain!

As our Lord said to the Samaritan woman in John 4, “…whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water i give him will become in him a spring welling up to eternal life.”

Or, as he replied to Zacchaeus at his house in Jericho when he repented in faith, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:9f).

Elisha, as the prophet who brought the Word of God, foreshadowed the Living Word of God.  As he spoke the Word over that cursed land, he changed forever into good what was bad; into saved what was lost.  “This is what the LORD says: ‘I have healed this water.  Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive!”

Dear friend, this is the Word of Life; this is the Spirit which makes things alive, though they were as dead; this is what changes you forever, too!

We cannot know if some or all of those people of Jericho were converted.  We do know that even the wicked King Ahab humbled himself after the sin he did against Naboth, when he killed him and his family for his vineyard.

The LORD postpones executing His judgment against him and his house because of his sorrow (1Kings 21:19).  The LORD is merciful, ever ready to help.  He blesses this response.

And so blessed does Jericho become that in Jesus’ time it has become a rich town, with the most luxuriant vegetation, it was the pride of the Roman province, and filled with all kinds of grand Roman architecture.

After all, wasn’t the road lined with sycamore-fig trees, one of which Zaccheus climbed to see the Lord?  And didn’t that day bring a new beginning for him?  The Living Word Himself spoke and convicted him within

Just as Simon Peter became changed from being the object of a curse to a source of blessing, from being a lost man into the fisher of men, so the life of Zaccheus is turned around forevermore!

But I wonder if I might ask you this day – is that your experience too?  Have you the new beginning?  Has the Word of God moved by the Spirit of Life in you?  By God’s grace, Elisha continued the mantle of Elijah.  As Joshua received the anointing of Moses, so Elisha received the anointing of Elijah.  The LORD was faithful then in making sure that His Word would fulfil all that it was sent out to do.

But more than all those prophets – great and faithful though they may have been – there was a greater prophet still; One who showed in His humanity the complete life-giving power.

Friend, do you believe that this One, this Christ Jesus, has gone right to the heart of the curse that this world is in?  Are you thoroughly convinced in your mind and soul and strength, that He conquered death; so paying the ransom for the life-destroying sin and breaking its power?

That’s why the Church must preach this Gospel.  To the four corners of this world the source of blessing must defeat the core of the curse.  Satan must be put to flight!  The darkness must be revealed by the Light!  The pure water must wash away the blight!

Friend, has your faith healed you, too?

Amen.

PRAYER:

Let’s pray…

O Lord Jesus, You who are the way, the Truth and the Life; You who are the Light of the World, the bread of Life; the Good Shepherd; the Resurrection and the Life; O Lord, do make us to drink from You, the fount from which, after having drunk, we will never be thirsty again.  And, Lord, do empower us by Your Spirit so that we might represent you, each one as prophets, proclaiming the greatness of Your Saving Name.

Please forgive us when we have despised Your good gift.  For Your precious Name’s sake,

Amen.