When you need a miracle No.2 Short stories of life and death

If we turn to 2 Kings chapter 2, I'll be reading a few verses, chapter 2, 19 to 25. And in the New International Version, this is headed up, the healing of the water. Kind of incredible, isn't it? The men of the city said to Elisha, look, our Lord, this town is well situated, as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is unproductive.

Bring me a new bowl, he said, and put salt in it, so they brought it to him. Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt into it, saying, this is what the Lord says, I've healed this water, never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive. And the waters remained wholesome to this day, according to the word Elisha had spoken.

From there, Elisha went up to Bethel, and as he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him, go on, you bald head. They said, go on up, you bald head. Pretty modern, isn't it? He turned around and looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord.

Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the youths, and he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there returned to Samaria. Father, this is your word. Thank you that you are the everlasting God.

Many things we just don't understand because we are finite. We're not eternal like you. Thank you, Father, that you are the Alpha and that you are the Omega, the beginning and the end.

Thank you, Jesus, that you are the one that was dead, and you are now the one that's living and reigning at the right hand of the Father. Holy Spirit, we pray that you will guide Tony through this passage. Father, minister to us.

Help us to change the errors of our lives that need to be changed. Father, we need to be sharpened. Lord Jesus, speak to us and help us to change our lives so that when we leave this place we can say that we've met with the living, the awesome God, the God who cares so much for us, that he sent us his only son.

That name, that Jesus. Jesus is the name we honour. Jesus is the name we adore.

That name that is above all other names. Thank you, Jesus, for your love towards us. Thank you that your prayers are incredible prayers of intercession on our behalf.

And Father, we pray that you'll bless this word to us, as difficult as it may be. Father, by your Holy Spirit, open our spiritual eyes. Open our eyes that we may see more of you this evening.

In Jesus' name we ask these things. Amen. One of the things that I always associate with India is the unpredictability of what might happen in a conference or a church service or just travelling around.

The first place I ever visited some 18 years or so ago, I guess when I first went there, was a little town called Mirimnabad. In the itinerary that's been kindly set out at the back of Notes and News, Amnabat is positioned, well, Mirimnabad's just north of that. It was my first taste of Indian culture.

Taste was a very good word to use, actually, when I think of some of the food and some of the smells and what have you. In this conference centre, it wasn't a very sophisticated place. It was very humble, but the fellowship was truly wonderful.

There was a little cook who came from south India and it had impressed him that I was a Brit, first time in India, and he was convinced that I could not exist on rice and dal, which is more or less the staple diet. Dal is a sort of soup that you baptise your rice with to make the stuff edible and send it down into your stomach. Well, he thought that after a few days I would wilt under this sort of meal, so he dedicated himself to helping me out and from time to time he'd get me a glass of milk and what have you.

Now the kitchen was just at the back of what served to be our conference hall and one occasion, I forget where I was in scripture when I was speaking on, but I just gesticulated and I put my hand out and he saw my hand and he's in this makeshift kitchen and he'd just done some scrambled eggs. So I pull my hand in, not realising what he's put on my hand. Here I am in the middle of an address.

This is perfectly true, it's not an exaggeration at all. I've got a bible on the makeshift lectern, I've got scrambled eggs. The first time I've ever had scrambled eggs and preached at the same time.

It's quite extraordinary what has happened out there and what you adjusted yourself to. So I'm looking forward to some surprises. On occasions on a Sunday morning over the years, maybe three occasions, I've used an illustration which I find quite compelling.

I like the book Wind in the Willows. Some of you have read it. The film version was on the box over Christmas and it's a book about animals and you must know you've got Toad of Toad Hall, this bumptious fellow who's lovable and annoying and gets into all types of scrapes.

Then you've got Badger and you've got Mollie and Ratty and they live down the river and the banks of the river and they get into no end of difficulty and have a lot of fun. It really is the most enjoyable story written by a man who just put the chapters together to keep his kids occupied at night actually when he told them bedtime stories. He made a fortune as a result because he kept all the stories, put them together in the book and it's become a world classic.

Well, on one occasion, to get back to the story, you've got Ratty and Mollie and it's a boring afternoon so they decide to get into the rowing boat and Ratty, he's doing the rowing. Mollie, he's got the rudder and they're not quite sure where they're going. Ratty makes the suggestion that they'll go to the island of Pan because Pan, well, it's not far down the river and it's where their god is.

Ratty is enthusiastically rowing and Moll says to Ratty, but aren't you a bit frightened? Frightened? Frightened, Moll going to see Pan? No, frightened, dude. Who'd be frightened of Pan? And then there's a pause, a silence and it's disturbed again as Ratty says, and yet, oh Moll, I am afraid. During the First World War, there was a padre.

Padre is the name that they gave to the chaplains and he was very popular. He used to dish out cigarettes and in those days a popular brand was Woodbine cigarettes and wherever he went, I'm not recommending it, but wherever he went he dished out his fags as the British Tommy's called them. He was so well known in the army for doing this that they dubbed him Woodbine Willie.

Not only was he a very jovial man and a very helpful padre, he wrote some books, at least he wrote some poems and one of his poems is again one that I've quoted from on a number of occasions down the years. It's got the concept of the British Tommy and he's out there in France. The First World War, well all wars are awful, but the First World War was a particularly bloody war.

It took so many good English, Scots, Welsh Irish men into a premature grave and here is one of the British Tommy's and the shells are coming pretty close and he's hit, but he's not killed, but in his stupor, in his semi-consciousness, he has an experience of seeing Jesus and as images of Jesus come across into the forefront of his imagination, so also something of his life flashes in front of him as Jesus takes an interest in the wrong that he has done, this British soldier. The dirty things you did to him, the filth you thought was fine, you did them all to me, he said, for all their souls were mine. All eyes was in, his eyes, all eyes, my wife's and a million more, and once I thought as those two eyes were the eyes of the London whore and they was sad, my God how sad, with tears that seemed to shine and quivering bright with a speech of light they said, her soul was mine and then at last he said one word, he just said one word, well, and I said in a funny voice, please, please, can I go to hell? He goes on to say that for a British Tommy with unconfessed sin to stand in the presence of Jesus would be so uncomfortable that the choice of staying with him and going to heaven would be ducked in favour of going to hell, because in an unforgiven state heaven in any case would be hell to you.

Strange, isn't it? Two stories, one with a little bit of literal truth, and the other the imagination of a man as he told anecdotes to his kids, but both stories combine to underline one thing which actually is basic to the Bible, that alongside the mercy of God and the comfort that you can have in entering into his presence, there is another aspect, the holiness of God. The Apostle Paul on one occasion writing to the Romans says in that epistle, behold the goodness and the severity of God. You see there are these two aspects, they don't cancel each other out, they're part of the orb of God's character, his holiness and his love.

Is holiness a frightful thing if you haven't first had as a result of God's love for you your sins forgiven? You would be uncomfortable in his presence, and when you die you do not automatically go into heaven. Salvation is not a blanket check written with the blood of Christ for every unthinking person. Jesus sometimes spoke severe language.

The doctrine of hell is constructed basically in the Bible from the teaching of our beloved Lord who spoke more to it, as far as I can deduce, than anyone else. So you say, why this introduction when you're taking us to the book of Second Kings? Well you see it's absolutely necessary for reasons that have been intimated both by Howard and myself earlier in our service. Here we are and we're making our way through the life of a man called Elisha.

Now if you turn to the Second Book of Kings, and I trust you will because I want you on Sunday evenings, whether it's Tim or myself who have the privilege of preaching or anyone else for that matter, to check what we say from Scripture. Because it's not what we say that's important, it's what Scripture teaches that is of prime importance. And we saw last week that Elisha was a man who took over a ministry from a very prominent, successful, fiery preacher whose name was Elijah.

And Elisha's ministry actually in some senses will be far less judgmental than Elijah's. Elijah called a spade a spade. Sometimes he brought fire down from heaven as a result of his prayers.

Sometimes he stopped the rain from falling and there was a tremendous drought. And Elisha, when he takes over the baton of the ministry from Elijah who's been carried off into heaven, he is going to speak a word of grace and comfort to the nation. But his message will not be completely contrasting to that of Elijah.

Rather you will find that there's a common denominator. So let's have a look at two incidents which are recorded here after Elijah has taken his leave of Elisha. They've gone across the brook Jordan.

They've gone into the wilderness. The chariots have come and Elijah has been carried off into the eternal realm. Elisha turns back on his tracks and he goes, I said, to the brook, to the river.

He goes to the river and he's got people looking on because there were 50 students who they'd passed on their way into the wilderness who also were trainee preachers and they've got Elisha under surveillance. And they're really asking themselves the question, who is going to take over from Elijah? Is it Elisha? If it's Elisha, will he have the same power as Elijah had? Well those of you who were present last week will know that the final request that Elisha made of Elijah was this. When you go, let a double portion of your spirit fall on me.

The power, the eloquence that you had, let me have but double measure. And Elijah said, if at the point of my entry into heaven you are present, that will be granted. And the mantle, which really was the insignia, the garment of office of the prophet, Elijah left behind and it falls for Elisha to pick up and as he approaches the Jordan, verse 13, he in a dramatic sense, in a dramatic way, just brings down Elijah's garment.

The Jordan opens and he passes through and Elisha is repatriated with the theological students who will be part of his company in the ministry that is to come. Now skipping over a few verses and coming to the 19th verse and then to the 23rd verse, you will find that there are two miracles that Elijah, Elisha performs at the beginning of his ministry. One is a miracle that you could call a miracle of life and the other is a miracle of death, but you put that in inverted commas.

As far as the miracle of life is concerned, well it takes place in Jericho. As far as the miracle of death is concerned, it's going to take place in Bethel. Now Jericho was an interesting city in the Old Testament history.

It was the first city that the Hebrews came against as they reoccupied the land that God had given originally to Abraham. It was the first city that put up resistance and God caused a curse to come on that city after it had been devastated. He said it was not to be rebuilt, but in the passing of time, as often happens even in a nation that claims to be a religious nation, as England once claimed to be a religious country, the will of God is bypassed and people seem to know better.

And we find that Jericho has been rebuilt, but Jericho has problems. What is the problem? Well, it has to do with the water. The water in the city of Jericho is bad and because the water is sour, because the water is bitter, it means that not only do the people have insufficient to eat, but the farming, the agriculture is affected.

And now, Elisha, if you are of the same ilk, of the same spiritual caliber of Elijah, your predecessor, can you do something about it? So what does he say? Bring me a bowl and put salt in it. So they bring a bowl to Elisha and he puts salt in it and makes a mixture. He goes to the spring, verse 21, throws the salt into the source of the water supply.

This is not what I say. This is no conjuring trick that I have performed. This is what the Lord says.

I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive. And the water remained wholesome to this day, according to the word Elisha had spoken.

You see, to understand just what is happening, you have to go back to the culture of that day and to sense the religious climate. Now, you won't find the second challenge too difficult, because the religious climate today is not very dissimilar from the religious climate then. Where there is a difference is that the clerical figures that are known today, the ministers of the churches and so on and so forth, they were not so prolific, because although this was the land of Israel, although it was populated therefore by Hebrews, the pure true religion of Moses had long since been diluted.

And really what Elijah had been doing was trying to restore the nation, trying to bring it back to its original foundations. And Elijah had been successful in degree, but there hadn't been a blanket revival, and it was necessary for someone else to come along and continue the work that Elijah had commenced. And so what was happening here in that cursed city of Jericho was a challenge to Elisha.

We have got a bad water supply. When our Lord Jesus was on earth, and there is a sense in which the ministry of Elisha anticipates the ministry of Jesus, he too found himself involved right at the start of his public career, challenged in terms of liquid. It wasn't that the water was sour.

It was that the wine at a particular party had run out, and as a result there was great embarrassment amongst the domestic catering staff. And so the news is directed to Jesus, who achieves a miracle and turns water into wine, and as a result establishes in some sense the beginnings of his credibility amongst people, who will see him not just as a teacher, though he was that. They will see him as a man from whom sparks of divinity flash out, and he is enabled in a way that is natural to him as it was unnatural to Elisha to authenticate what he was doing with miraculous signs.

Now it was that self-same Jesus who, when he got a bunch of disciples together, started to talk to them about what their impact in our world would be. You see, sometimes these Old Testament stories are little parables, true in themselves, but the spiritual meaning that they contain is even more important than the literal nature of the miracle. When Jesus spoke to his disciples, when by extension he speaks to you and me, he called the disciples the salt of the earth.

What does salt do? In the rough and tumble days of the Victorian era, when the cat of nine tails was applied to the backs of sailors who'd been forcefully conscripted and rebelled against the force, they'd get the salt water and they would apply it to the running sores caused by the whips. It actually was an act of compassion, though it was fearfully painful, because salt has an ability to work against a wound going septic. And Jesus said of his disciples, he says of his church, your ministry in this world will be to act as salt, to purify the springs of people's personalities, so that as a result of responding to the gospel, they will become changed people.

And to the end that the church acts as salt, she fulfills the reason why God brought her into existence. As Elisha will demonstrate the credibility, the necessity of his ministry in a parabolic, symbolic fashion here in Jericho by turning impure water into good, clean water. But the spiritual application will be even more wonderful as Elisha continues from Elijah and speaks not just of the judgment of God, but of the compassions of God, the mercies of God, who can come to a city that is cursed and bless that city, not because it deserves to be blessed, but because of who God is, the character of God, a merciful heavenly father.

But you see, you cannot dice with this God. You cannot gamble on one aspect of the character of this God. If you just emphasize one aspect, what you get is a cartoon God.

It's not the God of the Old Testament. It's not the God of the New Testament. It's the God of modern philosophy.

It's the God of modern liberalism. It's the God of man's own manufacture, and that God has no credibility in Scripture whatsoever. So, you take a simple little incident like this, and you find that invested in it is not only a literal recount of a supernatural act, there is also the hidden disclosure of God in terms of His mercy and His compassion.

But the narrator, the compiler of the history, won't leave just that incident on its own. He now goes on, and he takes you into something that is shocking, for a ministry of life is also one that is balanced by, or a miracle of life is also one that is counterbalanced by a miracle of what seems to be death. Elisha moves on.

He goes from Jericho, and he finds himself in Bethany. And now, you will never understand this particular story unless you get the context. In some writing that I'm trying to do just at the moment, I've had to try to take apart a man by the name of Peter Singer, who's a professor in Australia, who has written a number of books in the area of sociology and the way that ethics and science sometimes overlap.

He writes as an agnostic, and he is most critical of the Christian church because he says, well, within the Bible and within the character of Jesus, you get a sort of impetuousness. You get an unpredictability. I mean, here is this Christ, and there are three thousand pigs, and there's a man who is demented.

He has a demon. He has demons within him. Now, what is Christ doing? Exorcising those demons and allowing them to go into the pigs for them to, in a frenzy, gallop towards a precipice and fall into the sea and be drowned.

Not an easy issue to deal with. But you see, there are a number of things that you find about the character of our Lord Jesus, a number of things that you find in the Old Testament and indeed in the New Testament that fall ill on the ears of modern people whose idea of God is someone who so loves to do good and so loves to forgive that they're a sort of celestial Santa Claus, dropping down presents at the mere whim of a child who asks for sweets. But within the revelation of the Bible, you have to grapple with some great philosophical problems.

That man made in the image of God is the species particularly that God is interested in, in terms of eternal redemption. That when a man is confronted with the name of God, he should hallow that name. That within the whole orbit of sin, there is the concept of blasphemy, no longer recognized in our legislature, in our laws as being an offense, but in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, the sin of blasphemy is reckoned to be a heinous crime because it actually imputes the dignity of God.

It insults God. And when a man or a woman with ill thought says of God or mocks God's spokesmen, God responds in judgment to that act. There are certain places which have been set apart historically for the worship of God.

In our country, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, the great historic shrines of Anglicanism set apart for the worship of God, for the declaration of the truth behind the 39 Articles. And when someone goes on the radio or commands the media and suggests that the best way that we can enter into the next millennium is by putting up temples for Hindus and mosques for Muslims, he is showing a very immature appreciation of what this country owes this great God and what our forefathers dedicated the media and these particular buildings to in the first instance. And when what is dedicated to God, for the honor of God, as was the British Broadcasting Corporation in its inception, and the historic buildings in our land, when the purpose is deflected and something else that is God-dishonoring is allowed, God gets annoyed.

Bethel. Elisha goes from Jericho to Bethel. Bethel is the place where Abraham went to when first he left Mesopotamia and entered into the Promised Land.

That's where he built an altar to God. Bethel was the place where one of Abraham's descendants had a remarkable vision of God during the night and was told not to be afraid of his brother and to appreciate that God was going to be with him and God would do remarkable things as a result of his life's work. Bethel was always the place in the Old Testament of sacred memory.

But you see, as we moderns, so those Hebrews, they left their moorings. If you were to read in the prophecy of Hosea, you will find that the word vanity fair is actually lifted out. It's not too clear, but it's just there in the English.

It's there more clearly in the original. It's lifted out and it's appended to Bethel. Beth-aven, it is called.

The house of vanity. What had happened? Well, you see, a man called Jeroboam had come to the throne and as a result, we'll not get into the politics of those days, it's messy enough and complicated enough today, but as a result of his reign, he deflected people from going to Jerusalem. He put a shrine in at Bethel and the shrine consisted of two cows.

He was almost the forerunner of Hinduism and he got the Hebrews going to Bethel to worship the cows. Bethel was a wooded area, at least the hinterland around Bethel was. It's a place where you've got bears, wild animals, and here is Elisha and he's going to Bethel.

We're not told what he's going to say, but remember he was trained by Elijah, so we've got a fair idea. Now in those days, the baldness of head was taken as being a mark of discredit and to insult a man because of falling hair was indeed to have quite a personal dig at him. Now listen and remember this.

If a man has an anointing of God upon him, if he has been used as a spokesman of God, it doesn't mean that that man is above contradiction. It doesn't mean to say that you have to take everything that he says as though it was a Vatican statement. Your final authority is always the Word of God, but when a man has been used by the Lord, then remember the authority that he has actually comes from God and you can insult God by insulting the man.

Don't you know? Jesus of Nazareth, I have power to kill you or release you, and Jesus said, you would have no authority unless it was given to you by my Father who is above and that pipsqueak pilot eventually finished up in the backwaters of Rome, an utter mess he made of his life. You acknowledge God in the ministry of a man who brings a word to you? Now here is Elisha and he's coming to Bethany, a vanity fair, and these youths, not I think young children as the authorised version in some editions has it, youths, the same word used in the Hebrew to describe Joseph when he was 17 years of age, the same word used to describe Absalom when he was leading a rebellion against his father, these youths, they come out from the bushes so to speak, they mock the man of God, go up bald head. You see Elijah had just gone up, he'd gone up in chariots of fire, all right if you're as good as he is, if you really have that same sort of authority, then you go up bald head, let's see those chariots, authenticate your ministry.

If you are the Christ, come down from the cross. You see there's the same degree of mockery in both those incidents and it's not just mockery, it's blasphemy and blasphemy is a heinous offence in the evaluation of God and so what happens? Elijah, the man who heals the water, the man who bespeaks the grace of God will also show his authority and he'll do so in a very dramatic way which is repeated occasionally but not often in scripture and in church history but not often. He turns to these young men, he looks at them and calls down a curse on them in the name of the Lord, then God whose omnipotence controls the animal world as well as the human world as a result of his power, two bears come out of the woods and these youths are mauled.

It doesn't say they're killed, it says they're mauled. They're taught a lesson. What's the lesson? Oh how I fear thee living God.

Oh Maul, I am afraid. I'd rather rush into a burning hell than look into his eyes and hear him say, well, behold the goodness and the severity of God. He doesn't offer you the one without offering you the other.

Take the one and make God out of that and you've got a distortion, a tyrant God, a hideous God, a God who longs to punish, who records all your misdeeds and has hell waiting for you, the severity of God, but that's not the true picture. It's not the full picture. The other side is the goodness of God who sends Jesus into the world, who takes upon himself the responsibility for your sins, who hangs on the cross of Calvary so that the likes of you and I who never deserve his grace might go to heaven.

Behold the goodness of our God, but he doesn't hand sweets down to kids as a result of their whim. It's both, you see, the potential for death, for judgment, the potential for life, for mercy. This is what Elisha will teach you about the character of God, thus the reason for these miracles.

I explain them, I hope, as simply as possible and bring together two remarkable incidents. One, one of the most difficult to contemplate in scripture, but if you follow me, you'll have understood why it was vital that that cameo was written into the Word of God. Behold the severity, the goodness of God.

To where are you going? Into the woods, to be mauled by the bears, eventually to find your eternity outside of God, or are you going to the water that has been cleansed? Are you going to drink of the life-giving stream of salvation which is offered you even though sin has brought you under its curse? The severity, the goodness of God. There is a sense in which the benefits of my address now pivot around your response to it. Let's pray.

Father, we come before your throne, we're mindful of your mercy. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus. Underneath me, all around me, is the current of his love.

Father, we're attracted to you because of the Lord Christ, and we're glad that the darkness of Calvary indicates something of what we will not have to pass through. For he endured our hell so we can share his heaven. He had the mauling of the bear in order that we could know the robe of righteousness placed around our shoulders.

Blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus, accept our love. Baptize us in your love, and enable us to be faithful to your word. Bless our land.

Turn back the vanity affairs, and re-establish your rights in our nation, in our churches, in our media. God, help our country and send us Elishas. Amen.

Good night, God bless you.