Miracle of the Healing of the Water

In this part of the sermon: This section details the problem presented to Elisha: Jericho was a beautiful, fertile city, but its water supply was bad, causing miscarriages in both land (crops) and living…

Martin describes Jericho as 'the very paradise of Palestine,' with rich soil, tropical sun, shaded trees, refreshing springs, and perfumed air, to emphasize the contrast with its deadly water problem.

On the one hand, Jericho was a most pleasant place. Those who have visited and described Bible lands right of this particular area of real estate, everyone might see how pleasant was this place. The very paradise of Palestine, its rich soil basking under a tropical sun, yet shaded by palm, mulberry, and fig trees, while the air was refreshed by perennial springs of bright water and perfumed by the precious balsam plants, the scent of which the wind would sometimes carry as far as out to the very Mediterranean Sea. So when they said, You can see. To the prophet, that the place is a very pleasan...

9:23 - 10:40 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section details the problem presented to Elisha: Jericho was a beautiful, fertile city, but its water supply was bad, causing miscarriages in both land (crops) and living…

He contrasts the biblical view of childbearing as a blessing with a modern scenario where a miscarriage-inducing fountain would be marketed for cheap abortions, highlighting the departure from biblical sanctity of life.

This is a pleasant land, they say to the prophet. But the problem is what is perhaps our main water supply either causes the devastation of our crops and our foliage, or even worse, our cattle and our lives. And remember, this was in a day when your wealth was measured primarily in terms of your livestock, and when according to the tenor of the covenant that God made, the ability to bear children was a blessing from Jehovah. You see, had there been such a fountain that caused miscarriages in our day, you'd have women lining up paying $50 a bottle to have this stuff.

12:18 - 13:00 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin describes Elisha's seemingly counter-intuitive action: asking for a new cruse with salt and casting it into the spring. He explains that the salt symbolized purification…

Martin mentions commentators and travelers who have drunk from an unusually sweet spring in modern Jericho, suggesting it might be a perpetual monument to Elisha's miracle, though faith doesn't rest on it.

There's the action and the word of the prophet. And then we have in verse 22 the result of that word and action. So the waters were healed unto this day, that is the day when 2 Kings was written, according to the word of Elisha which he spake. And apparently the fruit of that miracle lasted at least down into the early 20th century for in several commentators, I have read some of the people who make it their lifetime work to go into Bible lands and try to unlock, as it were, some of the obscure places of Scripture by studying the geography and topography and the archaeological things in Israel...

17:43 - 19:10 Read in full sermon

Driving home: He's saying to a people who no doubt had at least their degree of Baal worship and some who were halting between two opinions, God is saying, in essence, in spite of your sin, in spite of your waywardness, I have not cas…

Martin uses the example of his wife silently entering his study, kissing him, and leaving, to illustrate how actions can speak eloquently and convey deep affection, just as God speaks through His deeds.

If I'm sitting up in my study, engrossed in whatever I'm doing, and I know my wife is somewhere else in the world, engrossed in the house, engrossed in her task, and she comes through the door and doesn't say a word, and comes and stands behind my desk and puts her hands on my shoulders and just leans down and kisses me and goes out, she doesn't need to say a word. But she's told me words. She's told me enough that I could write on a whole page. Out of sight is not out of mind.

27:09 - 27:38 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And it's God's design so to work as to humble all human pride. Not many noble are called.

He quotes an unnamed man of God who described God's people, based on 1 Corinthians 1, as 'God's five-ranked army of descending human weakness' (foolish, weak, base, despised, nothings) to illustrate God's pattern of humbling human pride.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul says this, by the inspiration of the Spirit, verse 26, For behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God chose the foolish things of the world that He might put to shame them that are wise, and God chose the weak things of the world that He might put to shame the things that are strong, and the base things of the world and the things which are despised did God choose, and the things that are not that He might bring to naught the things that are that no flesh should glory in His presence. I...

42:35 - 43:44 Read in full sermon

The point: Recognize that if God uses you or this assembly, it will be because He delights to work through the foolish and weak, not because of human qualifications.

Martin applies the principle of God using the weak to the church's need for building funds, stating that if they don't have wealthy donors, it ensures that when the building is built, no one can glory in human means, only in God.

Or that which in the eyes of even our fellow men qualifies us. But it will be because God is the God who delights to work by this pattern. Take the foolish things to confound the mighty. And as we think of the challenge of these coming days, people often say, well pastor, where's the money to build that building going to come from?

47:09 - 47:32 Read in full sermon