Click here to watch our Sunday School lesson as well.
Ever hear a message/podcast or be in a conversation where someone else was telling a God story, and you realize that this is one of those divine moments where God intervened and specifically sent you a message through another person to provide clarity or direction or insight into something in your life?
I had one of those this week where my IMPD partner was sharing about the Bible study lesson he was wrapping up on Wednesday night, that God connected to a series of conversations that were had in Wednesday night Pulpit committee meeting.
He was teaching out of 2 Kings 7:3-11 if you want to get a jump start and turn there, and as he shared highlights of what they talked about I quickly realized how relevant and applicable it was for me and for us as a congregation to hear and to apply because there are some parallels in this passage to where we are as a congregation.
So God has interrupted our regularly schedule programming of the Don't Treat God so Casually Series that we began last week so that we can receive what He wants to say to this church out of 2 Kings 7:3-11.
So let’s turn there now and READ 2 Kings 7:3-11
So lets unpack this culturally and contextually so we
can harvest the most out of these passages.
V3 says there were 4 men sitting at the city gates,
lepers in fact.
WHY were they sitting at the gate?
The LAW as in Torah required lepers (anyone with a skin
disease/discharge or contact with a dead body) be outside the camp/gate. For more on that do your own reading in
Numbers 5:2 so these folks were complete social outcasts
So these men cannot be inside the protective walls of
the city because of the law and social rejection associated with what was a
considered a divine curse.
But it important to understand that the Israelites were
under siege by the Aramean army (modern day
Syria). To understand the intensity of
this situation you have to connect this with the battle tactics of the
time.
Enemy armies commonly used a siege on a fortified city
to starve off the occupants or to reduce the #’s to the point that when they
stormed the gates they would be unable to defend themselves. So they literally would encircle the city and
just wait them out, nothing coming in, nothing getting out. It is so bad that one commentary reports that
a donkeys head was going for $350 worth of silver…like who want to eat a donkey
head for dinner let alone give a couple a hundred bills for it?
As the famine sets in nobody was bringing them food
outside the gate anymore, because their only means of sustaining themselves was
begging off passersby who were coming in/out of the city gates or the roads
leading to the city.
So these men, these lepers now are stuck between a rock
& a hard place. They are outside the
walls, totally exposed to the elements and the enemy, with no food and no way
of obtaining food/water…..as if being a leper wasn't bad enough it just got
REAL for these 4.
In v3-4 they come to that proverbial fork in the road
and they must make a decision to act in unity.
The text says the men discussed “why should we sit here waiting to
die?…we will starve if we stay here, but with the famine in the city, we will
starve if we go back there.” “So we
might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean (Syrian) army.
If they let us live, so much the better.
But if they kills us, we would have died anyway.”
So they are stuck, left choosing between dying here or
dying there. And they are discussing
throwing themselves on the mercy of the enemy through surrender hoping they
will at least get to eat as a prisoner, and if not well at least they will have
died quicker than starving to death here at the gate.
They had reached a
point where they had nothing to lose, death was unavoidable. Funny how God brings clarity when we are out
of options.
CONNECTION POINT:
Many of you have expressed to a pulpit committee member
or to an elder that this church is dying and that something needs to be done
immediately. Some have viewed this
pastoral search process as the hail mary/holy grail fix to all our problems as if hiring a PT
pastor/shepherd is going to magically make all our problems go away.
A few of you have expressed that John is brought on you
would have to say goodbye to ECC, and yet others have clearly said what are you
waiting for if he’s not hired we are going to lose long-time members.
I want to draw a parallel to the the perspective of the
4 lepers and likely what many of us in this church are probably experiencing
right now.
Notice how in the crucible that tough moment when it is
dark and the outlook is bleak the lepers perspective is limited to the natural
world around them. Meaning it is very
clear from the Scripture that they THOUGHT that death was unavoidable, there is
no good way out of this so they made a decision to go to the enemy camp. Notice that God is nowhere in their
perspective, nowhere in their outlook or is he mentioned in the conversations. Where was the faith of these 4 men? The Scripture does not say, but it does
define what their actions/words suggest.
So lets look inward, lets take a look in the mirror
ECC. If we are honest with ourselves we
probably are feeling about like these 4 lepers.
We probably have had some conversations with our spouses/friends/kids
about if we do this ECC is going to starve to death, or if we do this long time
members are going to leave. In many ways
the outlook is a shared one with the lepers die if we stay here or die if we go
there.
Like the lepers we are at that fork in the road where a
decision in unity has to be made. Notice
that v5 says at “twilight” which is that sliver between full
darkness and light breaking through.
Twilight is that place between indecision and decision.
Family I know we are in twilight right now, and here’s
the kicker, satan wants us to stay
right here. But we gotta make a decision
because inaction is death too, just like sitting at the gates was for these 4
men.
Let us return to the rest of the story in Scripture.
When the men rose up in twilight and with a sound
decision moved toward the enemy camp everything changed. The text tells us in vs 6 that the 4 lepers
went into the camp expecting the worst.
But what did God do? God made the
enemy hear a thunderous sound, as in 1000’s of horses/chariots like an army in
numbers so great they shook the earth.
So great was this sound that it caused trained soldiers to panic and
leave everything and run.
Notice that the victory is was God’s, nobody lifted a
finger and in fact were undeserving.
V8 tells us that these 4 men arrive to en empty camp,
not a single soul. They move from 1 tent
to another eating/drinking and plundering the clothes/gold/silver. You find this theme running throughout
scripture God raises up another people
group/nation/king and has them dig wells, plant fields and vineyards so that He
can ultimately give it to his chosen people.
In this case the lepers had no idea that somebody else was holding onto
their blessings that he had already prepared for them. You see just like the Israelites crossing
into the promised land God will reallocate the blessings that he has prepared
for his people AFTER we move in faith.
And that is what these 4 lepers did.
However, with chicken bone in one hand and a cup of wine
in the other and gold/silver filling their pockets their first reaction was
selfish “take care of me first” we know this because they begin to hide their
plunder and then their consciences kick in and point out that “this is a day of
good news and we aren’t sharing it with anyone”
and so they immediately go back and tell the gatekeepers. Our decisions are like an earthquake in that
they have aftershocks or long lasting impacts
Family it may look like we are stuck and cannot move
forward without a pastor or that we cannot invite others to church because we
don't have a pastors, but I beg to differ because of what I see in this
text. These 4 lepers, these men were the
absolute bottom of the social ladder no one would speak to them let alone
believe them if they were to engage in a conversation. Yet when they found themselves in the
unsearchable riches of God they did not even wait until morning to run and tell
others about the goodness of God.
We find ourselves in the exact same spot, wretched
sinners saved by grace. We know the
unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus and we see His thunderous work being done
here at ECC and we should be running back to the city and telling others about
what He is doing…regardless of whether He has installed a new under shepherd or
not.
So let me land this plane with a closing idea about
time, because many of us are feeling pressed for time, the intensity of the
situation compels us to make a decision ASAP in this twilight season of a
pastoral search.
There are a two different Greek words for time chronos which is where we
get the idea of chronological it is the tick tock linear idea of time Then there is kairos which carries with it the idea of the right time—the
idea of a predetermined time or an opportune time.
When you and I redeem the time we are purchasing out of
slavery the fleeting opportunities that we are presented with. in other words we “make the most out of every
opportunity” or “make the most out of your time”.
This idea is spoken to in Ephesians 5:16 that says “Make
good use of every opportunity you have, because these are evil days” and in
Colossians 4:5 where it says “Be wise in the way you act toward those who are
not believers, making good use of every opportunity you have”
Family I urge us to use wisely the time he has given us
by reaching out to other to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, not letting a
pastoral search process or whatever you see when you survey the landscape
around you. because remember that God
has already prepared the blessings for those who move in faith.
Today in honor of Memorial Day we are going to close out
our service with a Memorial day prayer via video that helps us to remember
those who fought for the right to worship and speak of Jesus.
ROLL VIDEO
WW1 poet Robert Binyon said of the fallen soldiers “they shall not grow old,
as we that are left grow old. We will
remember them”
So family amidst your picnics and family gatherings and
the rest of an extra day off please take a moment to remember our fallen
soldiers, 1st responders who have died to provide us with the very blanket of
freedom that we enjoy.
WE WILL NEVER FORGET
