Major Malfunctions (Part C)

I think that's what these lessons are. It's not to make us feel small, you don't have that kind of faith. You know, when people say, well, we don't have the faith like the apostles and the Christians in the first church because we don't have faith.

I don't buy that. I think there's always some elements of truth in it, but I think overall it's what is God doing? Well, God in our age is fighting the fight of faith through the Word.

Trusting what the scripture says and saying, can you believe without seeing? 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 2nd 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 in the book of 2nd Kings chapter 4 with his message called Major Malfunctions. Verse 27, And when she came to the man of God at the hill, she caught him by the feet, but Gehazi came near to push her away. But the man of God said, Let her alone, for her soul is in deep distress, and Yahweh has hidden it from me and has not told me. I'm trying to not get ahead of the comments.

It's so rich with real life. She managed to hold it together, to take the child up to his room, close the door. She managed to tell her husband she's got to get to the prophet, I need a servant. She managed to go through this long trip, but she gets to the prophet and she falls apart at the point of contact. She collapses and lets it all out as she reaches Elisha. She's been holding it in.

But Gehazi came near to push her away. Well, that was his job. I mean, Jesus had the disciples for crowd control. That's why when Jesus said, Who touched me? Peter said, Are you kidding me?

You can't hear these people pushing on you and shoving us and pushing us around. You know, Who touched me? So, this was the job. It was one of his roles. I don't think he was being malicious. Both men don't know what is going on, but Elisha knows it's big and it's bad. But the man of God said, Let her alone, for her soul is in deep distress. His adrenaline now is pumping.

It's got to be. Because listen to what he says. The Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me. God tells me everything. He tells me there's a famine coming. He tells me this. He tells me to bring oil in the jars. Why is he telling me anything about this?

Why is there this blackout? Amos chapter 3 verse 7, Surely the Lord Yahweh does nothing unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets. Yahweh, sometimes it's a time release. It's not all at once.

It just kind of seeps out and in time you finally get it. Well, God told things directly to Elijah. That's the gift of knowledge. To tell, to gain information that you could only get through divine revelation. The gift of knowledge. If a person gets up in the pulpit and they know the Bible, that's not the gift of knowledge. That's hard work. That's the gift of hard work. The fruit of their labor.

Knowledge, the gift of knowledge means you know something spiritual. You know, you see someone, you say this person is lying to me. Just from a pastor's perspective. Because God is telling me they're lying to me. Not because I don't like them or I just think it's that way. But I don't have it happen every single time, but it has happened clearly. The Lord has shown me.

And he is not showing his man at this point. The Christians should want every gift they could get hold of that God will give to them. Why? Why the gifts? Because we need them. It's hard enough to get along with each other without them.

It's very nice to have the gifts. Anyway, God wanted him to hear it directly from the woman. I believe one reason why the Lord is not telling him is because the Lord is bracing him for the fight, the faith fight that's coming. It's like Elijah, it's all not just about increasing the oil. It's all not about just, okay, you'll have a child.

There are some knockdown, dirty fights in this life and you've got to face it like the rest of us. Verse 28, so she said, did I ask a son of my Lord? I think she's still being very respectful, but she is still just, you know, tears are all flying, I would imagine.

Did I not say, do not deceive me? She's holding it to that. She'd been thinking about this the whole trip.

She knew it instantly, of course. I did not ask for trouble, but trouble asks for me. I am dead to the flesh, but the flesh is not dead to me.

This is reality. And to look at it any other way, I think, is to ruin your theology. To start, you know, creating little pockets of make-believe because you want to feel good about your faith. I prefer trying to deal with it head on, not being a stoic, but just in, we're supposed to, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, not the lie.

Of course, she wanted a son, but not so she could lose him. Verse 49, and this is registering with the prophet. He's not taking this lightly.

He's not, oh, come on, you know, trust the Lord, where's your faith? Something sick like that. Anyway, verse 49, so I feel the flesh coming up. Who am I to get in the flesh? Then he said to Gehazi, get yourself ready and take my staff in your hand, be on your way. If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer him, but lay my staff on the face of the child. Gird up your loins. His loose robe, his garment, he's saying, you know, this is code three.

Cyrene, no stop lights, no dealing, no hi, how you doing, kind of thing on the way. Everybody will know that there is serious business taking place. Take my staff in your hand and be on your way. Now Elijah, I believe, has advanced in years, and so he's sending the younger man first. Again, Gehazi is in the action.

He's young enough to take, to lead, to get there. There's a sense of desperation in the prophet, I believe. At this point, Gehazi is a trustworthy servant.

Not that I wanted to leave my watch out on the bed, but if I knew what I know now. Anyway, I think there is desperation in the voice of the prophet. He's human, as was his beloved teacher Elijah, and remember when we covered that in chapter 17 of 1 Kings, and the child died, this is what Elijah said to God. Then he cried out to Yahweh and said, Oh Yahweh my God, have you also brought tragedy on the widow with whom I lodged by killing her son? Man, it's pretty intense. To be such a faithful servant of God, to be used like Elijah and cry out like that means there's heavy pressure on him.

Life counts, it matters. Suffering means something, and you just can't hide. The prophet hoped that his blessing would transfer into his staff if Gehazi got there and put the staff on the child. After all, it worked with Elijah, with the mantle, he got the mantle, he touched the Jordan, it rolled back, well the staff should do the same thing, it's going to fail. And it's just, again, his desperation. Imagine how he felt when Gehazi came back, it didn't work. He was mistaken.

It is not transferable. Elijah warned him, he said, what do you want, what can I bless you with, Elijah before I go to heaven? Well, that I could have a double inheritance of your power. And Elijah said to him, man, that's a tough one.

Okay, if you see me taken up, you got it, but that's a hard thing to ask. And here we see that it is a hard thing to do under the terms as they are with God, there are laws we just don't know about. It did not transfer to the rod, even though Gehazi got there in desperation. He says if you meet anyone, do not greet them, if anyone greets you, do not answer him. This is an organized pell-mell, everybody rushing, and it's not right down the block, I mean it's 20 miles of this fight of faith. I don't know what God is going to do, I can't dictate to him, but lay my staff on the face of the child, desperately wanting the child to be up and sitting in the bed by the time he got there. But this time, God wanted his man there. He wanted the old prophet there. Verse 30, and the mother of the child said, as Yahweh lives, as your soul lives, I will not leave you, so he arose and followed her. Again, this is what the prophet said to his teacher Elijah, I'm not going to leave you. She's saying, I'm not going anywhere if you're not going, I'll stay right here. So he's like, well I can't have her live with me.

But she says, I'm not leaving without you. I think he didn't want to go, he didn't want to face this. He wanted it to just work, and that's not what was happening, so he's going. Verse 31, Now Gehazi went on ahead of them and laid the staff on the face of the child, but there was neither voice nor hearing. Therefore he went back to meet him and told him, saying, the child is not awakened. I'm sure when he saw Gehazi coming, he knew this wasn't going to be good news. Our attention, for the moment, shifts to Gehazi. No intrinsic power in the rod.

The rod was not, you know, a shilele or something, where it just is magically, you know, it brings, it's not magical. I don't think it's because Gehazi was the problem. Yes, he will stumble, who doesn't? I think that this is not what God, how God wanted this to happen. And maybe it will come out when we get to what the prophet then does.

And so Gehazi, very active throughout the episode, just a ruined potential, a warning to us all, don't take for granted your God appointed position. Verse 32, when Elijah came into the house, there was a child lying dead on the bed. Verse 33, he went in therefore, shut the door behind the two of them and prayed to Yahweh. So again, he closes the door.

It's a private matter. He had miles to prepare himself for this dreaded moment. And as I mentioned, this would be a faith fight and Elijah, his teacher, fought this fight before and won.

That had to be playing in his mind. He's going to fight this fight also, verse 34, and win. And he went up and lay on the child and put his mouth to his mouth, his eyes to his eyes, his hands to his hands, and stretched himself on the child and the flesh of the child became warm. This is what is happening here, I feel.

Face to face, breath to breath, eye to eye, hand to hand, body to body. This is skin in the game. I am in this. The prophet, what is going through his head, I think is now starting to, just the faith is prevailing at this point.

Because the progress, there are indications of progress, the body temperature coming back so the child is cold. Passion of the prophet is off the chart. It's on a whole other level. Only a holy man of God could get to this level. I think that's what these lessons are. Not to make us feel small, you don't have that kind of faith. You know, when people say, well we don't have the faith like the apostles and the Christians in the first church because we don't have faith, I don't buy that.

I think there's always some elements of truth in it, but I think overall it's what is God doing? Well God in our age is fighting the fight of faith through the word. Trusting what the scripture says. And saying, can you believe without seeing? Because that's what Jesus said.

Thomas, blessed are you. You see and you believe. But it is more blessed to believe without seeing.

Not leap in the dark, leap in the light based on the facts. It is a high honor for the church and Christians today to believe in scripture in the face of Satan's incessant attacks to get you to think the Bible doesn't work. If you think like that, you're going to be an apostate. If you think you're just using the Bible to get it to work and then it doesn't work, you're going to be disillusioned and go do something else. Or you'll be diminished to the degree where we all hope you do something else because you won't be doing what you're supposed to be doing well. Serious business is the Christian faith. Being in church is serious business because it is not a vote out of hell that's going to get you into a Bible teaching church. Anyway, verse 35.

And it's not good enough, I should add, to just listen online. Sorry to make you look down and look up, but it's not good enough. We are to assemble.

We are to be where we can touch each other unfortunately and just in each other's lives that is. Verse 35, he returned and walked back and forth in the house and again went up and stretched himself on him. The child sneezed seven times and the child opened his eyes. So he's battling.

He leaves the child in the room, he goes down, he paces back and forth. He's like, okay, I mean, it was progress, but this ain't over. It takes respiratory strength to sneeze seven times in succession. The healing was complete, the number seven. This is what the prophet wanted.

He knew what this meant. Seven sneezes matched by seven thank yous to the Lord. First Kings chapter 17 verse 22, this is Elijah. Then Yahweh heard the voice of Elijah and the soul of the child came back to him and he revived. That's the fight of faith. What would happen if the child didn't revive? Would that give the right to stop believing Yahweh?

Of course not. The prophet Habakkuk ends his prophecy with a very challenging, I don't care if we die of starvation, the Lord is still the Lord. That's how he pretty much sums it up. Well, as Jesus taught, only by faith can we gain the upper hand over malfunctions only by faith. Verse 36, we got time, we got to finish this chapter.

We've gotten past the big stuff, but there are more malfunctions. Anyway, he called Gehazi, verse 36, and said, call this Shunammite woman. He's probably exhausted. So he called her and when she came into him, he said, pick up your son. Verse 47. I think it was just like that. I think it was anything else that that would have been remembered and recorded.

But I do think he spent. Verse 37, so she went in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out. Gratitude. Gratitude. First Thessalonians 5, 18, Paul writes, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. We kind of passed that part about for you. It singles us out. Gratitude.

It's a big thing. How do you feel when you hold a door open for a stranger going into a store and they don't even say thank you? You hit them with the door.

Oops, sorry. Anyway, I've never felt like that as an adult. I used to hang out in Chinatown as a kid. Man, they had different customs. You'd hold the door open and nobody said thank you. That's how they were.

I don't think they were trying to be rude. It's just a different world. Anyway, coming back to this, this would be a nice trip back to Carmel. Hebrews 11, 35, women receive their dead raised to life again by faith, of course. A happy ending to a horrific malfunction. Later, and I said I'd come back to this, Elijah will announce to this woman, to this woman, a famine is coming for seven years. God gives him this gift of knowledge, prophecy, and you need to go somewhere else. And so she goes to be with the Philistines. Seven years later, she comes back to Jerusalem, the famine's gone, and she goes to the king. Well, the king happens to be talking to who? Gehazi.

He's a leper at this point. And the king says, Jehoram says, tell me some things about Elisha. And he says, well, I'll tell you this story. There was this woman, and she had this, Elijah said, you're going to have a child?

She has this child. And the child dies. I get there with the stick and I'm going through this and nothing. I go back to the prophet and nothing.

You should saw the look on Elijah's face when I told him he's still dead. And then he gets there and he goes, and he's telling the king this as the woman shows up in the court. And Gehazi says, there she is. That's her.

That's the woman. And the king says, well, what do you want? And remember, Elijah earlier said, do you want me to get to the king and get you something? She said, no, I'm fine with my people. Well, here we are, years later, she's saying they've taken my land, my house. And the king says, restore her land and give her the proceeds from all those years.

Somebody's been working her farm. The death of the boy turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Powerful lesson from God. All that ends up being used to save her later on.

The husband's probably dead by this time. Verse 38, and Elijah returned to Gilgal. That doesn't mean he left, that's where he originated from, but he makes these trips all over the place.

Gilgal is one. And there was a famine in the land. Now the sons of the prophets were sitting before him and he said to his servant, put a large pot to boil stew for the sons of the prophets.

Alright, so this is a big deal, not a little deal. The guys are hungry. The prophet tells them to boil stew. I think the expectation is he's going to increase the food for the prophets. Verse 39, so one went out in the field to gather herbs and found a wild vine and gathered from it a lap full of wild gourds and came and sliced them into the pot of stew, though they did not know what they were. So one guy grabs these but nobody knew what they were and they were all fine with eating it.

This is biblical to be a picky eater. Some well-meaning but unqualified blunderer in ministry. That's what we have here. Zeal without knowledge is not a joke, not a game. There are certain trades and jobs that if you fake it you'll kill somebody else if you don't kill yourself too.

There are many jobs like that. It's going to take a man of God to solve this poison problem. Of course you have a picture of people bringing heresy into the church because they think, what could be wrong with this? I heard this guy on the radio, I love this guy. Yeah, well let me tell you what he believes. Ah, come on, but I love him. He makes me feel so warm and fuzzy.

He's a heretic and you have no right defending him and getting upset if you're a pastor pointing out the truth. And so there's poison in the pot and who put it in the pot? A well-meaning son of the prophet. Prophets, that's who did it. We've disarmed the kids but they're still, you know, they're knee level, they can do damage.

So we've got to get this wrapped up here. Verse 40, this is a malfunction, again. Then they served it to the men to eat. Now it happened as they were eating the stew, they cried out and said, man of God, there's death in the pot.

And they could not eat it. Well, you know, they're getting cramps. It's not just like, hey, no, there's death in the pot. This is great, I'm getting sick in church.

I mean, this is bad. Verse 41, so he said, then bring some flour. I'm glad he clarified, don't bring a flour. That's English.

Anyway, coming back. But he put it into the pot and said serve it to the people that they may eat and there was nothing harmful in the pot. Well, this isn't magic. This is a man that has fought the war of faith. God has used him so much.

This is desperate times in Israel. What was edible was the antidote for what was unedible. There's an antidote. There's an antidote for stupidity. There's an antidote for meaning well but doing bad.

There are antidotes, truth over error, but you've got to stick with it. Fighting fire with water in this case. The prophet neutralized the poison, overcoming it, but it was God that did the whole thing. He could have put sawdust in the stew and it would have worked because God was the one doing it.

He knew what he was doing because God was, he was in touch and so it's a miracle detoxed the stew. You could, that would be a good item on the menu, detoxed stew. You could put some gourds in it. Anyway, I never knew what a gourd was until I got to boot camp. They kept telling me to put a cat on my gourd. Seriously, I didn't know what a gourd was. Who knew a pumpkin was a gourd?

Well, people from the south know these things because you've got farms around and everything. Anyway, coming back to this, there was nothing harmful in the pot. Well, that which was from the harvest is defeated, has defeated that which was from the wild. Another lesson, the harvest is working the land under the curse in the midst of the malfunction and just going out picking things. When he saw the bush, he probably said, praise the Lord, look at all this fruit.

This is how Christians are too, right? Praise the Lord. Hey, the story's not over yet. Stop it.

Don't name it and claim it. I'll punch you out. Anyway, verse 42.

And just another thing, I've got a second. Don't use that generational curse junk, please. By that stupid logic, all of us are doomed. It's a generational curse, that's why it's in.

Yeah, no kidding. I hope it doesn't sound random, but I don't have time to color it in, but it's in here. Verse 42. Been a man of God from Baal-Shalishah.

I'm not saying that name again. He brought bread and the first fruits, 20 loaves of barley, newly ripened grain in his knapsack, and he said, give it to the people that they may eat. But his servant said, shall I set this before 100 men? He said again, give it to the people that they may eat. Thus says Yahweh, they shall eat and have some left over. Verse 44. So he set it before them and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord. So this man comes and he brings food to the man of God. The man came and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits.

Verse 42. Elijah, I want to bless you. Well, Elijah says, a famine.

I'm going to sit in here and eat and come out all fat and heavy and everybody else is gone. I mean, I can't do that. But there's not enough, the servants. Elijah says, give it to the prophets. Well, there's not enough.

That won't work. You have fist fights or food fights. So the prophet, by faith, resolves the problem, the malfunction again, by the food being multiplied in abundance, after all those precedents for this. John's Gospel chapter six, verse nine. There is a lad. This is Andrew. There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish. But what are they among so many? That's the same situation here.

They had a lack and they end up with an abundance. Let's pray. 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.