Inseparable (Part C)

Thus says Yahweh, I have healed this water, from it there shall be no more death nor barrenness. He goes to the source, not the symptom.

I just point it out, you can't miss that. Am I a source of bitterness to others? I mean, wrongfully.

You think you have the right to kill the unborn? Then I'm going to be a source of bitterness to you. But if you are behaving yourself, I hope I'm not a source of bitterness.

If I am that type of person or detect that behavior, I need to do something about it. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of 2 Kings.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now, here's Pastor Rick with the conclusion of his study called Inseparable in 2 Kings Chapter 2. No king is saved by the multitude of an army. A mighty man is not delivered by great strength as the righteous go. The Lord is the one, but he has to have his vessels there, vessels of honor. Verse 13, he also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan. Okay, so he knows he's got the promise. Now, this mantle, this cloak, it doesn't drop because Elijah was clumsy on the way up.

I mean, like, oh, and a sandal, too. It is on purpose. It's deliberate. He left. This is the mantle, more than likely, that he cast over Elijah when he was working with the oxen. Hebrews 17, remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow considering the outcome of their conduct. We're seeing that in action in these two men. Verse 14, I mean, this is the crime of the church departing from the word of God.

Where else are you going to learn this stuff? I mean, you know, you can go to a pep talk from a coach or a motivational speaker, but there's no authority behind that. There's no anointing. This is, there's anointing. This comes from God's throne. Verse 14, then he took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen and struck the water and said, where is Yahweh, God of Elijah? And when he also had struck the water, it was divided this way and that, and Elijah crossed over. So, the Spirit is, has the Spirit of ministry transferred over to him.

This is an interesting thing. I have said this to God in moments of just complete dissatisfaction. Where's the God of Elijah?

I can't believe, why don't you do something? That kind of a spirit rather than Elijah here calling on the Lord saying, the God of Elijah is my God. And he has promised this and Lord, where are you?

And he strikes the waters and they part. No longer is he the prophet's apprentice. He is now the journeyman prophet. And again, as the succession of Joshua from Moses. And this ministry parallels Joshua. Joshua parted the Jordan also. Moses parted the Red Sea.

And so there's precedence for all of this. So it goes through a few parallels between Moses and Elijah. Both parted bodies of water, the Red Sea, and again, the Jordan, as I mentioned. Both called down fire from heaven. In fact, Moses did it like three times.

So at least he was part of it, you know. When Dathan rebelled, fire came from heaven and consumed them. He did it before Pharaoh.

Both men saw the Lord provide food. Moses with the manna and the quail. And of course, Elijah, twice also, with the ravens and the widow of Zarephath when the flower and the oil. In the land of Egypt, Moses prayed and God altered the weather. Well, with Elijah, he called for a drought and for three and a half years, it was a drought.

And then he canceled out the drought later. Moses gave the law to the people of Israel. Elijah called them to repent and return to the true and living God there on Mount Carmel.

How long halt you between two opinions? If Yahweh is your God, serve him. Both men made journeys into the wilderness. Both men stood before God on the mountain. Both men had unique endings to their life. God buried Moses in a grave nobody can find and God carried Elijah to heaven in a whirlwind. So both Moses and Elijah were present with Jesus on Mount Carmel. So what we see is a systematic God, a God that has a system in place and he's following it. And there's a message in the system and it's up to us to figure it out and apply it.

And it can have multiple forms of application. In verse 15, now when the sons of the prophets who were from Jericho saw him, they said, the spirit of Elijah rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him and bowed to the ground before him. I don't know when he saw them coming out. What was he thinking?

Oh, great. No, he probably was not. He was probably processing his grief. Well, here this is the deference. You know, they're showing that their allegiance is to him. He is now the father in the faith.

He is the leader. They saw the mantle. They saw the, you know, the two go out, the one come back.

They were submitted, but they still had, they still had problems, these guys. And I don't plan to see them go to their neighborhood when we get to heaven. I'm telling you right out.

Just kidding. Verse 16, then they said to him, look now, there are 50 strong men with your servants. Please let them go and search for your master, lest perhaps the spirit of Yahweh has taken him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley. And he said, you should not send anyone. Strong men, but not wise men. Lest perhaps the spirit of the Lord has taken him up and cast him on some mountain. Who do you think God is? You think he just like flung his body?

Like, I don't need this anymore. This is their perception of God's character. That school is defective.

I mean, so he said, you shall not send anyone. So there's this gap that exists. Now you know it is a gap. There's a generation gap where you've lived decades, you've learned things, but the generations that have not approached these things yet, they don't want to hear it. Then they learn it. Then they have the gap when they try to tell the next generation. So when you come across youth that submit to their teachers, then you get a youth that is more productive in life, especially for the kingdom.

Body and spirit, I surrendered whole to harsh instructors and received the soul. The world has such a saying. And there's merit to that saying. But these guys, they're just, every time they open their mouth, you wish they didn't. So anyway, verse, so that gap, so let me pause there.

You know, again, they're just, they're Christians in the church that are new to the faith and they know so little and they come for counseling and it's very difficult to tell them something without them copying an attitude and say, he just doesn't want me to get the job or something, who knows what. So you have to try to learn to package it gently. I just learned it last week.

All these years I've been like, listen, you're dumb. You need to do it my way and that's that. That doesn't work well.

I never do that. Anyway, back to this, verse 17. And when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, send them.

Therefore, they sent 50 men and they searched for three days but did not find him. You got to love that. I mean, they just nagged him like Delilah vexed the soul of Samson to death. He finally said, fine, I'm ashamed of you. I can't take this anymore. You know there's a rolling of the eyes, a sucking of the teeth. He's beyond that. He's just fine.

He went to a fast food place, get something to eat, let them go out in the woods. This is unbecoming behavior of people of faith to just be nagging the leader and we see churches do this. People just nag, why don't you do this?

Why don't you do this? And they'll finally say, fine. And they shouldn't do that. That should never be the reason to capitulate. If God says so, yes, then fine.

But not because you're being nagged. And anyway, verse 18. And when they came back to him, for they stayed in Jericho, he said to them, did I not say to you, do not go? Well, of course. Told you. He got to let you.

Somebody recorded the satisfaction of Elijah. He's like, I told you. I told you. Three days you were out there? That had to be hard. You want to tell me about it?

I'll be back in an hour. Maybe. Anyway, Proverbs 19, 11. The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger and his glory is to overlook transgression. Well, he kind of overlooked it a little bit. Not really. Sora, if you're a leader, you can't pick on everything.

You can't find every little thing. You got to choose your battles and some things you just can't hammer human beings like that. Nor do you want to be treated that way. So here, Elijah, who destroyed 102 soldiers in one episode, Elijah will go on to spare Syrian troops. And one, he had a ministry of stern judgment when it needed to be just that. Elijah will have a little bit more grace when he deals with, for instance, Naaman. He'll be very gracious.

When he deals with Gehazi for his betrayal, he's going to be gracious still. So we have in these two men a contrast in character, some in ministry, like we do with Hosea and Amos. Amos was kind of no nonsense.

He just came out. They told Amos, go back to Judah. Don't preach here anymore.

We don't like you. That's what they told him. And Hosea, of course, he comes and says, look, my broken heart is now the ministry of Yahweh. And he's just a powerful story in the two. God uses these different walks of life, causing all things to work together for the good, which I don't like to repeat when I'm suffering. This is what it means. And you can't force the hand of God.

So you might as well try to line up with it. Verse 19. Then the men of the city, he said to Elijah, please notice the situation of the city is pleasant, and my Lord seethes, but the water is bad and the ground barren. So word of his parting, the Jericho with the mantle of Elijah, evidently circulated, or else we wouldn't have it here. And so they approached him with a good need. They said, look, this is a nice town, is it not? You know, not too much humidity, no traffic, no loud music.

This is a nice place. All right, back to this. So they said, but there's a problem. The water, the water is foul. We can't irrigate, we can't drink this stuff.

And he's going to, they're asking him if he can do anything. Verse 20, and he said, bring me a new bowl and put salt in it, so they brought it, brought it to him. Now salt, of course, symbolizes influence from God against impurity. It slows down, it retaliates, it is a comeback to evil, to leaven, spreading kind of a thing. The distinction, a new bowl, the Holy Spirit knows when he put that adjective there that we'd pick up on it. This wasn't just a bowl, it was a new bowl.

And I think such distinctions are there to prompt us to think about it and it will be used if we get it into our heads. This rule with the salt, well, all the sacrifices required salt, even into the New Testament. You're the salt of the earth. Every sacrifice will have its salt if the salt loses its savor. So when we are, say, in the workplace or the school or the playground, wherever we find ourselves, and we become sloppy in our faith, we're not salt. We're not behaving as though we're the salt of the earth and light of the world. Some Christians, they want to be the light of the world, have all this Bible knowledge, but there's no salt.

There's no righteousness that goes with it. They have no breastplate of righteousness to withstand the fiery darts. These things are not supposed to be fragmented. They go together and are supposed to stay together.

They go unit cohesion. No living creature can produce salt on its own. That is interdependence. We depend on the Lord. And so, yeah, when we come across the word salt in Scripture, there's a lesson there, and it is for us to extract that lesson. I watched a couple of documentaries some time ago on salt, and if you can find it, they're really worth watching. There's a lot that goes into getting salt from mines, the sea, dry riverbeds that flood, just a lot that goes into it. Anyway, verse 21, then he went out to the source of the water and cast in the salt there and said, Thus says Yahweh, I have healed this water.

From it there shall be no more death nor barrenness. He goes to the source, not the symptom. I just point it out.

You can't miss that. Am I a source of bitterness to others? I mean, wrongfully.

You think you have the right to kill the unborn? Then I'm going to be a source of bitterness to you. But if you are behaving yourself, I hope I'm not a source of bitterness.

If I am that type of person or detect that behavior, I need to do something about it and go to Christ for cleansing and fix that. So, again, salt is a serious healer in the Scripture. Moses, like Elijah, he came to the waters of Mara. They were bitter. He was told to throw a tree, which is probably a log or a branch.

He threw that into the water. Moses was strong, but he wasn't that strong. And so, anyway, at Mara, God revealed himself to his people as Yahweh Rafa, the Lord who heals. And this is what we're seeing here. This is what we see in Acts chapter 8 with Simeon, the magician. When we get to Alimis, he is a real sorcerer, but he was bound in iniquity and poisoned in bitterness and he prayed, oh man, don't let this curse come on me.

We can all identify with that. Anyway, I can say, we've got a little time here. Of course, for the Christian, we see the cross of Christ and anywhere where it belongs, it doesn't take much to see it. So when Moses is told to throw a tree into the bitter waters to heal them, we see the cross of Christ being thrown into the bitterness of a cursed life.

That makes all the difference. And this salt here, it interferes with the spread of corruption. It actually cancels it out at the source, this particular scripture. The people with Moses, they needed righteousness over sin more than emancipation from Egypt. And in Elijah's day, the people needed resistance to the spread of Baalism and its corruptions and all other various idolatrous ways out there.

They needed that more than fresh water to drink. And these are the spiritual lessons. Thus says Yahweh, I've healed this water.

He makes it clear Yahweh is the one. There's no occultic work. There's no potion going on here. There are lessons through the symbols, but the salt's not doing it. They take that same salt and go to a different bitter spring and it will stay bitter.

This is God's doing. And from it, there shall be no more death or barrenness. And so evidently, people got sick and died because of this water and the barrenness.

We couldn't irrigate with it. Moving forward, verse 22, so the water remains healed to this day according to the word of Elijah, which he spoke. Now verse 23, then he went up from there to Bethel and he was going up the road. Some youths came from the city and mocked him and said to him, go up bald head, go up bald head. I don't like these guys more than anybody in scripture.

I think it's a bit over the top, don't you? So the present King Jehoram, he is the one that is into this Baal worship. These youths are in line with that. It says, as he was going up the road, some youths. Now the old King James says, little children, that is flat out wrong translation.

I think I know how they got to the wrong. The adjective little is there in the Hebrew, but the children part is really lad, and that has a broad range. And so here's what the Bible does with that word. Solomon says that he was a youth when he was inaugurated king. He's 20 or 30 years old, more like he's in his 20s. Jeremiah was in his 20s when he said, I am but a youth. And so from these and others, Joseph, when he was 17, this Hebrew word is applied to him. So the adjective little would say, well, it's probably not in his 20s, these were probably adolescents, young adults, 20s and teens, a whole group, 42 of them actually, two bears, there's 21 a bear, and the math works out well there. But there's a lot more to this story. So it's not little children.

Let's strike that. The Hebrew does not support that. The King James translators goof there. But this insult that they're hurling at him, this is more than just rude. This is blasphemous. This is a gang of irreverent youth, maliciously ridiculing God's appointed servant.

And it's not going to go well. They were thuggish in their advocacy of the worship at Bethel. That was their hometown, and they were going to defend this worship, and they weren't going to let some upstart prophet come in there, because he's on his way, it tells us he's on his way to Bethel. The word gets out, hey, I passed Elijah on the road.

And they come out to engage him. It says here, came from the city and mocked him and said to him, now this, go up. This is the same word used in verse one where Elijah was going to go up to heaven. So sarcastically they're saying to Elijah, go up like Elijah did and just get out of here and die. Just leave. Just go up, go up Baldy.

That's what numbs called. That's what they're doing. They were old enough to go out of the city on their own, because it says they came out of the city. They were savvy enough to notice that Elijah was not only bald, but he is the prophet and that he served Elijah.

So we find out these aren't little kids. And say when they said you bald head, go up you bald head, again a show of hands who agrees that this was over the top. Leviticus 13, 14, one of my favorite dear verses of the Bible.

You should have this on every refrigerator. As for the man whose hair has fallen from his head, he is bald, but he is clean. Let's pray. Anyway, these guys had to be dealt with. And in verse 24, so he turned around and looked at them, and did drama music there.

I know, we're a little late, right? The kids will revolt, so let's get this rolling. And pronounce the curse on them in the name of Yahweh. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the youths. Well, good that they weren't the male bears, because they would have killed them. I think that's part of what it, and the other part is that a mother bear robbed of her cubs. They were already having a bad day, so these guys were just, this is part of the curse. I expect that the youth who survived, and apparently they all survived, Elisha doesn't seem to have stuck around to figure out how they handled this.

Anyway, they probably had these scars on their bodies for life, and would be reminded of what happened. Luke 20 verse 17, speak, this is the Lord. He looked at them and said, what then is this that is written?

The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Well, that eye contact Christ made was intense, you can bet. Luke puts it there, and so it says here in verse 24, so he turned and looked at them. I don't think they ever forgot that look.

I think they remembered it. Someone may have been with Elisha, he may have had a servant with him who's noting these things. He pronounces the curse, which is a judgment.

It is one in real time, there's no delay. Adolescence is no excuse for blasphemy. They were blaspheming, make no mistake about that.

Gives new meaning to a heart for teens, a heart for youth, right? These were bad youth, and this is how they were dealt with. As I mentioned, these two bears were used by God to address these youth who were the future of Israel. They would live to influence Israel, and God went against that. Interesting, when Elisha was called, of the three men named with him, he is the one that God said would kill, but doesn't attach the word sword to it. 1 Kings 19, this is when Elijah was on the mountain and he says, now go anoint Hazael, go anoint Jehu, it shall be whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elijah will kill.

That's pretty intense. Man, the two witnesses during the tribulation will have such power. Revelation 11 5, and if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies, and if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. Don't forget, when Peter talks about the judgment of God, he says that Sodom and Gomorrah did not escape. Well, we could go on, verse 25, and then he went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria. And so to the place of great victory over Baal worship, he heads back up, and he is going to be a great inspiration to the righteous, some exciting stories to come. Thanks for joining us for today's edition on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We trust that what you've heard today in the book of 2 Kings has been something to remember. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series, go to crossreferenceradio.com. Once more, that's crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. Our time is about up, but we hope you'll tune in again next time as we continue on in the book of 2 Kings. We look forward to that time with you, so make a note in your calendar to join Pastor Rick as he teaches from the Bible right here on Cross-Reference Radio.