Raising of the Shunammite Woman's Son

Introduction: The Unifying Theme and Context of the Shunammite's Son

0:04 Will you turn with me, please, to 2 Kings and the 4th chapter, 2 Kings, chapter 4, and I shall read verses 32 through 37, 2 Kings, chapter 4, beginning our reading at verse 32. For those of you who may not be familiar with the setting of this paragraph in this chapter, remember the son of miraculous birth to the Shunammite woman has died, she has made her appeal to the man of God, he has made his initial response by sending his servant before him with orders to lay his staff upon the dead child, Gehazi has obeyed the directive of the man of God, Elisha, nothing happens, he leaves the house, makes his way back to the prophet and to the Shunammite woman. The women who are making their way to the house, and then the narrative goes on in verse 32, and when Elisha was come into the house, behold the child was dead and laid upon his bed, and he went in therefore and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the

1:25 Lord, and he went up and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes. And his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon him, and the flesh of the child waxed warm. Then he returned and walked in the house once to and fro, and went up and stretched himself upon him, and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. He called Gehazi and said, Call this Shunammite.

2:04 So he called her. And when she was come in unto him, he said, Take up thy son. Then she went in and fell at his feet and bowed herself to the ground, and she took up her son and went out. I have emphasized again and again in our study of this portion of the Word of God that there is a unifying theme to this fourth chapter of Second Kings, and that theme is the fatherly care and covenant faithfulness of Jehovah, a care and faithfulness manifested in the midst of a period of great apostasy, a period of impending judgment upon the nation of Israel, a care and faithfulness manifested in such a way as not only to confirm those who did not bow the knee to Baal, to confirm them in their faith in Jehovah. But manifested in such a way as to assert in the midst of all of that apostasy that Jehovah indeed was alone the true and the living God. For the past three studies we have been examining the most lengthy of the four incidents recorded

3:28 in this particular chapter, those matters surrounding this woman who is described as the great woman of Shunem. In verses 8 through 17, we examined the record of the kind providence of God in rewarding her hospitality to the man of God by giving her a son. Then we considered in verses 17 to 25 the dark providence that broke into the life of this woman and her household in the death of the son that was so graciously given. And then last week, in the latter part of verse 25, we examined the record of the kind providence that broke into the life of this woman.

4:08 We looked at the healing of this woman. First we saw the first part of the chapter and the final part of the chapter and came to the conclusion that the first area in verse 31 was the initial response of the man of God to this dark providence. And now we come to the concluding paragraph relative to the circumstances of this great woman of Shunem and the giving and then the taking and now the giving again of this son to her. And we might well call this paragraph, Back from the Dead, or The Dissipation of a Dark Providence.

The Facts of the Narrative: Elisha's Actions and the Son's Resurrection

4:36 ... 1 This is a phrase I found from the book The Theology of a Three-Faith Man.

4:37 And as we normally do when considering these historical passages, we shall first of all seek to get a firm hold upon the facts of the narrative so that we may have an intelligent grasp upon what the text says actually happened. And then having laid hold of the facts of the narrative, we shall consider together the message or the lessons of this narrative to us sitting in this place tonight. First of all, then, the facts of the narrative. Gehazi, as I've already reminded you, has left the house and somewhere at a lesser or greater distance from the house, the text is not clear, he meets Elisha and the Shunammite woman and indicates, as we read in verse 31, that there has been no voice nor hearing, no signs of life restored.

5:32 This does not deter Elisha, but according to verse 32, he comes to the house, and behold, the child was dead and laid upon his bed. This is just a simple rehearsal of facts that have already been established, but they seem to be repeated so that we may face, as the prophet did, the stark reality of the desperate situation that was in front of him. News had come from the woman, and then Gehazi has, as it were, confirmed that news, and what he hears by the mouth of two witnesses, is now vividly confirmed by his own sight and by the perception of his own senses. He comes to the room that was made for him, and there, upon his bed, is a lad who has been dead for at least twelve hours. No doubt the evidences of death are already very marked in the blueness of his face, in the absence of any warmth in his body, and the man of God now, whose last memories of this child were no doubt pleasant memories of his being very much alive and all of the happy times shared in that home,

6:55 now he comes and, as it were, feels the atmosphere and the heaviness that permeates that household, because the child is dead. We read then in verse 33 that he went in, therefore, that is, to the room where the child is laid upon the bed, and shut the door upon them twain, that is, himself and the lad, and prayed unto the Lord. Having observed the solemn reality of the desperate situation, he shuts himself up with the dead boy and with the living God. How long he prayed, the text does not say.

7:38 It simply tells us that he prayed unto Jehovah. Then after a season of prayer, again, whether short or lengthy, the text is silent, the prophet begins to do a very strange but not an unprecedented thing. We read in verse 34 that he went up and lay upon the child and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon him. Now imagine how naturally offensive this would be to a well-instructed Jew.

8:18 To touch a dead body was to render oneself ceremonially unclean. A dead body that had been touched in battle, or that of necessity must be touched for burial, rendered the Israelite who touched, touched that body unclean for seven days. He was, in that sense, cut off from those privileges of public worship and public contact and interaction with the people of God. And so not only is there that natural aversion to death and that shrinking back from the demonstration of death in a lifeless corpse, but there was this additional revulsion that would be inbred into Elisha as a true Israelite, one whose love to God could not help but be manifested in a serious regard for all of the details of God's holy law, the ceremonial as well as what we commonly call the moral or the civil dimensions of that law. And yet he does something that is technically improper, but in these circumstances he has a precedent for what he does. For some of you will no doubt remember that when his predecessor Elijah found himself in similar circumstances, he did the very thing that we now find Elisha doing in 1 Kings 17.

9:48 We read the record of the death of the widow's son,

9:56 and when Elisha takes the dead child, verse 19 of 1 Kings 17, he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom and carried him up into the chamber where he abode and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the Lord and said, O Lord, my God, hast thou brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourned by slaying her son? And he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried unto the Lord and said, O Lord, my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into, into him again.

10:37 And it was no doubt out of the context of this intimate association with Elijah that Elisha recalled in his season of earnest prayer in that room shut up with the dead lad and with his God this incident recorded in 1 Kings 17. And probably, though I would not dogmatize, there must be a rationale for this, I would suggest that this is, at least to my mind, a satisfactory rationale for what he does. That if he has a precedent set by his predecessor that in pleading for the life of the child he actually stretched himself upon the child, that he would argue with the Lord and say, O living God, who heard the prayer of my spiritual father Elijah, who heard him when he cried, who heard him when he stretched himself upon the child and pleaded, and pleaded with you and, as it were, poured his very soul in this symbolic action into that dead lad, Lord, would you not manifest that you are indeed the God of my spiritual father Elijah? As surely as when he struck the Jordan River and they parted and we passed over, and from the other side I struck that river with that mantle and cried, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? And you manifested that you are the God of Elijah. That you were the living God

12:06 and that you were the God who would attest the validity of my place as your representative. Surely it must have been something of this nature that formed the pleadings of the man of God as he is shut in alone with God, pleading for the life of that child. And then the Scripture tells us that as he lays himself upon that child, puts his mouth to his mouth, his hands to his hands, that the flesh of the child waxed warm. And we do not know whether or not this was actually the intensity of the prophet's praying which caused unusual heat in his own body and thereby communicated warmth to the flesh of the dead child, or whether this was the beginning of God's bringing of that child to life. The text is silent on that matter. As best as I have been able to examine this in the commentaries of those who know the Hebrew language thoroughly, there seems to be nothing in the text that answers the question, was this a communication of the warmth of Elisha's body to the flesh of the dead child? Or was it the infusion of the first signs, vital signs to the child?

13:30 The text is silent. All it says is, that the flesh of the child waxed warm. Now he does something that even appears yet stranger. More strange.

13:44 Verse 35. Then he returned, apparently, leaving the room, going down into the main part of the house, and walked in the house once to and fro. And again there seems to be no explanation for this activity, but to find it in two things. As anyone who knows who is engaged in the intensity of earnest and agonizing prayer, there often comes a point where there must be, as it were, a relaxation of the tension of that intensity in prayer.

14:20 And the change of physical posture is almost a necessity to maintain one's equilibrium. And it could well be that this is what we have in this incident, that the feverish intensity of prayer, that the feverish intensity of prayer, that the feverish intensity of prayer, that the feverish intensity of prayer, that the feverish intensity of prayer, that the feverish intensity of prayer, all regulated, all under control, but rising to such a high pitch, demanded that the man of God leave the room with his mind and spirit obviously still taken up with the concerns of seeing the lad return to life. And perhaps the second thing was also to strip away all carnal confidence in himself. For some time he's been in the room with the lad.

15:03 He has been crying, crying out to Jehovah. He has stretched himself upon the lad, and yet the lad is not yet returned alive. And no doubt when he leaves the room, the Shunammite woman, Gehazi, and if the father is there by now, they wonder, do you come with good news? And it's as though God slays their expectations. The child is still dead. Now the man of God goes up, we read, and again stretches himself upon the lad, and then suddenly there is a short inhalation, and then a sharp exhalation in the form of a sneeze, and then the sneeze is repeated, and repeated again, and again, and seven times the lad sneezes, and then the text seems to indicate that after that seventh sneeze, he himself is brought to full consciousness. His eyes are opened, and the world from which he has been shut out by the chilling hand

16:10 of death is now open to him again. There is the look of recognition as he looks upon the man of God. There is the look of consolation as he sees that room into which no doubt he had been ushered on previous occasions, and in which he had enjoyed conversation and happy times with the man of God. And now the man of God, convinced that he is indeed alive, calls Gehazi his servant, giving him an order to summon the Shunammite. And Gehazi obeys that command, and when she was coming unto him, he said, Take up thy son. The son apparently is still lying there upon the bed, wide awake, alert to all that is about him, and the man of God stands back and says, in essence, there is your darling. darling, take him up. But now she does a strange thing. She doesn't go immediately to her son.

17:10 Apparently assured in her heart that the vital signs of life are no mirage, convinced that he's alive, she first of all turns to the man of God, verse 37. Then she went in and fell at his feet and bowed herself to the ground in an act of gratitude, in an act of recognition that this was indeed the mercy and the grace of God, not an act of superstitious worship. For wherever a man of God sensed that this kind of response was given in the Old or the New Testament, the man of God would refuse it. But apparently the servant of God here, Elisha, recognizes that this is her way of expressing her gratitude, even as her grief and earnest desire was previously expressed when she fell on the ground. She fell and took hold of his ankles and said, As God lives and as thy soul lives, I will not leave thee. Now she takes the posture not of earnest entreaty, but of honest gratitude to God and to his servant. And then and only then does she rise, go to the bed, take up her son, and go out. It's amazing how chaste and guarded the scriptures are. We would love

18:32 to know something of what she said. We can only imagine something of what she felt. The last time she had felt the pressure of that form in her arms, it was the lifeless, dead weight of his lifeless form. She had felt the chill of death as he died upon her knees at noon. Who can imagine what she must have felt when those same arms felt the warmth of the flesh of that land? The eyes that had looked into his lifeless face, now looking into eyes that communicate love and appreciation and warmth and all of those overtones of filial affection. Who can begin to imagine what this dear woman must have felt and experienced if ever there was a moment that she desired to put in a bottle and capture it and keep it and smell the fragrance of it for years to come? Surely.

19:34 Surely it was this moment. Well, this is the wonderful ending to this account of the dealings of God with this great woman at Shulam. Well, those are the facts of the narrative. Now, what does all of this say to us? What was it intended to say to this woman? What was it intended to say to those who lived with her in that dark period of Israel's history? history? What was it intended to say as it went into the record that became the perpetual deposit of the will of God for the nation of Israel? What is it intended to say to those of us who have it as part of the full revelation of the mind of God in Holy Scripture? Well,

Lesson 1: A Powerful Vindication of Jehovah's Claims

20:24 it's those questions that we now attempt to answer. First of all, I would suggest that the great lesson of this narrative is that it constituted a powerful vindication of Jehovah's Claims. It constituted a powerful vindication of Jehovah's Claims. Again and again, when the Lord would assert His rights as God, He claims to be the only true God.

20:59 the only rightful object of the worship of His people. It is the exclusiveness of His Godhood that undergirds the jealousy with which He guards the exclusiveness of His worship. And one of the things that He claims for Himself as the only true and living God is that He is the one who both can give and take life. If I am Jehovah, I kill and I make alive.

21:34 One of the things with which God again and again through the prophets taunts the idolatrous worship or the folly of the worship of idols is that they are dead gods. They cannot see, they cannot hear, they cannot think, they cannot breathe, they cannot act, they cannot give life. And so in this situation where Baal where he was killed, where Baal was killed, where Baal's worship is still rife, where the priests of Baal and the followers of Baal are still numbered in the hundreds and even the thousands as the subsequent history in 2 Kings reveals, God is coming not only to support and buttress the faith of this individual woman, to assure her that in refusing to bow the knee to Baal, she is indeed worshipping, the living and the true God, the God who alone can kill and make alive. But think of the situation in that village. We had occasion to make reference to the conception of this child. And this woman who was great in her faith as well as great in her estate would share with her neighbors and friends and townspeople that this son was the gift of God's grace to her and was a miracle son.

22:58 He was conceived in unusual circumstances as far as the age of her husband when she had given up hope of ever having a son. No doubt there were skeptics in that day who put a different interpretation upon those facts, who could say, well, it always happens once in a while that people in old age have a child. And there were no doubt some who perhaps were quite comfortable in convincing themselves that that boy that they were, that this great woman says, was given as the result of the direct intervention of Jehovah, what would they now say? When his death can be attested by witnesses, when at least twelve hours have passed from the time he breathed his last, for that boy who was given as an unusually conceived boy now becomes a resurrection boy. And he lives and carries on, and his life in the midst of a society permeated with Baal worship, and his very life is a constant and monumental testimony to the livingness of Jehovah and of Jehovah alone. And so this wonderful intervention of God in answer to the prayers of the prophet was not only calculated to strengthen and buttress

24:26 the faith of this great woman at Shunem, but it, constituted, I suggest, the powerful vindication of Jehovah's claims so that in that immediate context, at that point in the history of redemption, God was saying again, I am God alone,

24:49 you shall worship me and have no other gods before me. Then as the story of this became part of the oral tradition of Israel, and then was embodied in the written, written revelation, it was to be another reminder to the nation that whenever it was tempted to turn aside to worship nothings, to worship the Baals of whatever age they would, in which they would manifest themselves, this would be a pointer back to the fact that Jehovah and Jehovah alone is the living and the true God. And that's what it says to us, today. God doesn't need to repeat such miracles and raise our dead infants from their graves or from the bed upon which they have been placed. God has given us the record in His Word to attest and validate that He is indeed the one and the only living and true God. And when He lays claim to the exclusiveness of your love, of your adoration, of your worship, He buttresses that claim by such evidences as these that He alone is the living God.

Principle A: The Power of Persevering Prayer

26:17 Then I suggest in the second place that the lessons of this narrative are to be found in that it contains some striking demonstrations of vital principles of the Christian life. Not only a powerful vindication of Jehovah's claim, but some striking demonstrations of vital principles of the Christian life. First of all, it contains a striking demonstration of the power of persevering prayer. Most of you will remember that James, when writing on the subject of prayer and urging the people of God to persevering, believing prayer, encourages that duty by the example of Elisha's predecessor, Elijah. We read in James chapter 5 and verse 19, Confess therefore your sins one to another, verse 16, and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working. Now, how is he going to encourage the people of God to believe that the supplication of a righteous man availeth much?

27:39 Well he draws encouragement from the example of Elijah in prayer. Elijah was a man of like passions with us and he prayed fervently that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months, and he prayed again and the heavens gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit. Now this teaches us that the miracles wrought by these men were wrought in answer to prayer. We have no record in 1 Kings of any prayer in which Elijah engaged before he went into Ahab and said, It shall not rain until I say that it will rain again. I don't remember if he pronounced the exact amount of time in that initial pronouncement. We do have the record of his persevering prayer which brought rain after that period of time of three years and six months. Well, surely, if James takes the experience of Elijah in prayer in order to encourage the people of God in general to have confidence in the power of persevering prayer, it is right for me to do the same.

29:00 It is right for me, without any inspiration, such as James had, to take a clue from James as to how the record of the persevering prayers of the prophets is to be regarded. Now there are some who say, well, that's moralizing upon the Old Testament. That's sheer nonsense. It is not moralizing upon the Old Testament.

29:25 It is using the Old Testament according to apostolic precedent. And as we interpret the prophecies of the Old Testament, according to the principles used by the apostles and the New Testament writers, so we interpret and use Old Testament history according to the principles employed by the inspired writers. And so this does indeed set before us this striking demonstration of the power of persevering prayer. Try to relive that situation.

30:02 The news has come that the child, the child is dead.

30:06 Gehazi has gone in obedience to the prophet and laid his staff upon the child. He returns and says there is no sign of life. And now the moment of truth comes. There is the lifeless form of the lad.

30:23 There is the man of God. There is the unseen but present Jehovah. Now what is it that will bring to bear upon the lifeless, corpse of the lad, the power of the living God?

30:44 Elisha is convinced there is but one instrument ordained of God to that end, and that's prayer. And so the text says very simply but powerfully that after he had shut the door, he prayed unto Jehovah.

31:06 He did that which you and I are privileged to do. He did that which you and I are privileged to do. He cried unto the living God by means of the weapon or the instrument of all prayer. And again, who can imagine something of the arguments with which he must have wrestled with God until that wrestling became an obsession with him.

31:29 And though the intensity demanded that grief we breathed that caused him to go down into the house and to pace to and fro once and then to return and to stretch again, to stretch himself again upon that child. Here is a wonderful example, not of prayer that was answered at its first motions, not of prayer that had its answer and its visible response after the first petition, but here is an example of persevering prayer that refused to let God go until the desired blessing was granted. And surely with regard to this matter of persevering prayer, and surely with regard to this matter of persevering prayer, and surely with regard to this matter of persevering prayer, our duty is clearly established from Scripture. Has not our Lord said, men ought always to pray and not to faint? Do we not have the entreaty or the admonition of the Apostle in Ephesians 6, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance? Our duty is clear.

32:40 Our encouragement is clear. Our encouragement is clear. We have some of the most broad, the most staggering promises when it comes to the exercise of prayer. They are found in the Old and the New Testaments.

32:56 Call unto me, and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and ye shall find. All things whatsoever ye desire, When ye pray.

33:11 pray, believe that ye have received them and ye shall have them. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you. And this is the confidence we have that if we ask anything according to his will, we know that he hear us. And if we know that he hear us, we know we have the petitions we desire of him. Not only is our duty clear, but our encouragements are clear from these many promises. And I've only given you just a sprinkling of those promises. And then our encouragements are not only many from the promises, but from the examples. Why do we have these examples of the power of persevering prayer, but to do the very thing for us that James says they ought to do for us? Yes, this was a prophet. He had peculiar responsibilities and he had

34:04 special access to God in terms of his office. But according to James, he was a prophet. James, he was essentially like his predecessor, a man of like passions. He was made of the same stuff of which you and I are made. And yet he was heard when he prayed. And therefore our encouragements are many. For again and again in the Old and the New Testaments, God gives us the record of what he delights to do in answering the prayers of his people. But in spite of the clarity of our duty, the manifold nature of our duty is not the nature of our encouragements. How much we dishonor God and impoverish ourselves because we fail to pray with persevering persistence. And over many of our ills could be written

34:59 this one text, ye have not because ye ask not. And I refuse in making this point to go into the mysterious matter of how we can do this. I refuse to go into the mysterious matter of how we can do this. I refuse to go into the mysterious matter of how we can do as God has done it.

35:14 Now, do we reconcile the utter, the uninhibited sovereignty of the living God and the prayers of his people? I see no attempt in Scripture to sort that issue out in a way that is philosophically satisfying. All I know is that the same Bible that asserts the unfettered sovereignty of God asserts again and again our duty to pray, our encouragement, and our pleading produce judgments to believe that we are heard when we pray, and the tragedy of having not because we ask not. Oh, may we be stirred from the example of the prayer of Elisha to press on in the duty of privilege and privilege of persevering prayer. But then there is another great principle of the Christian life vividly illustrated here, and it's what I'm calling the reward of persevering faith. The woman's deeds are recorded throughout this entire section. The relative calm with which she took the dead lad and placed him upon the prophet's bed, and then the discretion she showed when she asked her husband permission to have a

Principle B: The Reward of Persevering Faith

36:40 servant and a saddled ass to make her way to the man of God. Something of that. The deep intensity is recorded in that next paragraph when she brushes by Gehazi with a minimal word of civil greeting and then clasps the feet of the man of God and vows that she will not leave him. But nowhere is it actually said in the text that in all of this she had a growing confidence that God had not given that son simply to slay him.

37:17 But as so often happens, the New Testament becomes the interpreter of the old. And in Hebrews chapter 11 we read this very significant word, Hebrews 11, after listing many of the incidents from the Old Testament which illustrate faith as an active principle of spiritual life, the writer wants his readers to know that he has by no means exhausted the examples. Verse 32. And what shall I more say?

37:53 For the time will fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of the fire, escaped the edge of the sword from weakness, were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens. Verse 33. And women received their dead by a resurrection. Who through faith accomplished these things and listed in the midst of these matters, women received their dead by a resurrection? The only record we have of such incidents are the records in 1st King's 17 and in 2nd King's chapter 4. of all of these things, this woman clung to that confident expectancy that God would indeed raise her son from the dead. Now, on what did her faith rest? Was there a specific word

39:10 from the Lord? Had something passed in conversation between her and the prophet in an earlier period? I do not know. I do know that faith does not exist in a vacuum. It must have a word from God upon which to fasten itself. And somewhere, God gave to this woman a word upon which she staked her confidence that that son would indeed be raised from the dead. And so, though there were many things to discourage her, the lengthy journey to the man of God, and then the disappointing excursion of the servant of the man of God, Gehazi, there seems to be not a shred of evidence in any of this that she doubted that God would do what he said. Now, this is why it is fanaticism for

40:09 people in our day to go by the graveside of loved ones and say that they believe they are going to be raised from the dead because they have faith enough to believe it. That is sheer fanaticism. Faith must rest upon a word from God. And though in this instance we have miraculous faith that rested upon some word of direct revelation, whether by the word of the prophet's mouth or by an intimation given directly by God to her own mind and spirit, I do not know, for the text is silent. The great principle remains that all of the promises and directives of the Word of God must rest upon a word from God. I do not know, for the text is silent. The great principle remains that all of the promises and directives of the Word of God that we hold in our hands, these are to be the basis upon which we approach God and within which we persevere in faith." And it is true now, as it was true in our Lord's day. He did not many mighty works because of their unbelief. They had the intimations

41:15 of his goodwill, of his desire to heal those that were afflicted and sick. The record in resides now because of this principle of faith. Him was the but the only who had true faith. The Taxbreaker Conquerer Mikulsios .R.endgele So the message is simple. Anyone who port had gone throughout all the land, and yet in that particular area he did not many mighty works because of their unbelief. And here again our duty is clear. Without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him. Our encouragements are many, both from the promises and the examples, even as it is with prayer. But it is our unbelief that impoverishes us. And I wonder if we even pray as the disciples prayed, Lord, increase our faith. Do we not pray for the increase of holiness, of likeness to Christ, of zeal for the kingdom of God? But how often do we pray, Lord, increase our faith? Don't let

42:19 us leave. The promise is unclaimed because of unbelief, or because of that lack of the element of persevering faith. Surely we can pray with the nobleman, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. But are we even concerned enough to pray for the strengthening and the increase of faith? And then since faith comes of hearing, and hearing by the word of God, we can pray What is true of initial saving faith is true of the grace of faith in the Christian life. It is nourished not by watching the boob tube, not by reading the daily newspaper. Faith is nourished as it feeds upon the Word of God and it sees the largeness of God's heart. It reads the record of His past dealings.

43:17 It sucks sweetness from the promises the mind and will of God are unfolded in the Word and then become the basis of persevering faith. There will be no material growth in faith in any one of us unless there is increased meditation upon the Word of God and increased prayer that our faith be strengthened and that our unbelief be conquered. Then I suggest also, that one of the great lessons of the Christian life that is in this particular passage, we not only have a pointer in the direction of the power of persevering prayer, the reward of persevering faith, but we have a pattern for effective service in the work of God.

Principle C: A Pattern for Effective Service in God's Work

44:07 And what I'm suggesting here is that we have an analogy. I am not saying that when this record was written, God intended that there, there should be a one-to-one parallel, some kind of a type of Christian work. I am saying that there are principles which find a counterpart in the work of the kingdom of Christ, particularly the work of seeking to see men and women brought from spiritual death to spiritual life. For surely the Word of God takes the imagery of physical death and resurrection, and applies it to the spiritual condition of men. We are all familiar, I'm sure, with Ephesians chapter 2, in which the apostle describing the former state of the Ephesians says, You hath he made alive who were dead in your trespasses and sins. Well, what principles are operative in the work of God's kingdom in bringing dead sinners to spiritual life? I suggest there is a pattern, of effective service in that aspect of the work of the kingdom, in the activity of the prophet of God in the face of death.

45:28 First of all, there was an honest assessment of the real situation. It says in our text that when Elisha was come in to the house, behold, the child was dead and laid upon his bed. Gehazi had already come and said, I've laid your staff upon him. There is no hearing.

45:50 There is no prayer. There is no emotion. The child is dead. And when the prophet went into that room, he did not go in with any mistaken notions as to the desperate condition in which that child was.

46:04 He was dead. And I say by way of analogy that that's where all true work of the kingdom of Christ begins, with an honest assessment of how bad the situation is. Men who are strangers to the grace of God, the grace of God are dead. They are not intellectually dead.

46:27 They are not aesthetically dead, nor are they morally dead. They have a moral consciousness and a conscience that excuses or accuses them. But there is no spiritual life. There is no bond of communion with the living God.

46:44 There is no vital union with Jesus Christ. And something of the awesome finality, and the soul, and the spirit, and the sobering, humbling realization of the total absence of anything that can be nurtured from sparks into a living flame must grip the heart of anyone who would be useful in seeing the kingdom of Christ extended. May we never simply hold as a theological tenet the doctrine of man's total depravity, his true spiritual deadness. The prophet began with an honest assessment of the real situation, but then the second thing we see that forms this pattern of Christian work. There was an earnest crying to God for his intervention. He shuts the door, and he prays unto Jehovah, convinced that God alone can impart life to the dead. He cries to God to do what only God can do.

47:55 The Apostle Paul understood this, for he tells us in Romans 10, in verse 1, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

48:07 In a very real sense, the measure of our conviction that men are really dead is in direct proportion to the earnestness of our crying to God to give them life. Do you as a Christian parent really believe that your children are spiritually dead? They're not just sick. It's not just that they've got a few perspectives out of joint and need to have them reset by some good spiritual bone setter.

48:39 It is not that there is spiritual life that simply languishes and has gone underground for a time, but the right influences will break open the springs and bring them out again. They are dead. And if we believe that, then we will cry to the God who alone can give life to us. Life to the dead.

48:59 If we believe our neighbors and relatives and friends and those with whom we work and those with whom we sit in the classroom at school and college and those with whom we rub shoulders in the office and in the shop, if we believe they are dead, then surely, like the prophet in the midst of death, our hope and our help is to be found in Jehovah and in Jehovah alone. But then, could there not be a lesson for us in this strange activity of the prophet? This intimate, self-denying identification with the needy individual. In the midst of his praying, he rises up from his knees, if he were upon his knees, and then he stretches himself over that lad. Everything in his Jewish blood is averse to coming into contact with a corpse. But in sin, self-denying identification, he puts his mouth to the child's mouth, his hands upon his hands. He would, as it were, impart something of his own life to that dead lad.

50:15 And I know not what else to see in this, but something of that genuine concern that will always result in intimate, self-denying identification with those needy individuals, for whom we pray. There's something revolting about most sinners still dead in trespasses and sins. Some of them, because of God's common grace, are relatively well-perfumed. There's nothing very obnoxious about them.

50:50 But with the erosion of common grace in our society, there are very few unconverted people who do not have elements in them that are utterly obnoxious to a true believer. And to draw close enough to help them demands great measures of self-denying love.

51:11 And it seems to me again that this is precisely what the Apostle Paul is saying when he says in 1 Thessalonians 2 and verse 8, we were willing to impart unto you not the gospel only, but our very souls, because you were become dear to us. He was. He was not content simply to lay the staff of gospel truth upon a dead man and walk out and say nothing's happened. I'll leave it in the hands of a sovereign God.

51:45 No, no. Having prayed unto Jehovah, he stretches himself upon that land until he feels the flesh of the child waxing warm. I don't know, again, whether that was the beginning of the impartation of life or whether it was an absorption of the warmth of his own body, but one connection the Word does make clear that the warmth of the child's flesh was intimately connected with that act of self-denying identification.

52:20 And we know that it's God who alone can impart life to sinners, but He rarely does so unless some living saint has placed Himself over that sinner in his death and has drawn near. In self-denying love. That's what Paul meant when he says, I desire to fill up on my part that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for His body's sake, which is the church. That's why he could say, I have continuous pain and heaviness in my heart.

53:02 I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.

53:12 While the exegetes and the theologians debate what he meant, anyone who sought to be a winner of souls understands what he means.

53:23 There is that element, almost the reflexive element, that if I truly long for this dead one to come to life, I cannot, I cannot be at rest to long and pray and yearn from a distance. I must do, what self-denying, identifying love demands. For our Lord, it meant the loss of His reputation for being a decent person.

53:56 You remember what happened when He gave life to a man named Levi? Levi in his newfound life throws a big bash, a big party, a big banquet. The Lord is there with all of Levi's old cronies.

54:10 And the Pharisees see it and they said, Huh! Friend of publicans and sinners. Wine! Bibber and cotton!

54:19 Our Lord was willing to risk His reputation in the pursuit of this kind of love. I wonder, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, if this may not be one reason why we do not see more sinners brought to the feet of the Savior. I'm not accusing, I'm only raising the question. I must leave you to wrestle with that question in the presence of God.

54:54 Elisha, the man of God assesses the situation, cries to the Lord, then in self-denying love identifies himself with the needy one. And then in the fourth place, there was a patient but earnest waiting upon God until life was given and life was manifested. In that agony of soul, he goes out of the room and downstairs comes up again, stretches himself upon the tile. Then there is a sneeze.

55:25 And another. And another. And another. And another.

55:29 And another. And another. Until it totals seven. Until they total seven.

55:33 And then he sees the child's eyes opened and having patiently waited for the life that only God could impart. And then for the life that would be manifested in a tangible way, he receives the reward of his patience. And surely this is what God calls upon us to do, that we assess the situation of our children, our loved ones, our neighbors, crying to God, seeking to identify with them in self-denying love. What are we then to do?

56:09 We are to persevere and wait patiently until God is pleased to give them life, and then for that life to be manifested. But you say, what if God doesn't give the life? My friends, at least we can go to our graves, with the conscience void of offense to God and man, and know that there will be no accusation in the last day when we stand before him. I say again, it takes more than laying the staff of truth upon dead men.

56:47 It takes the agony of spiritual exercise such as we see demonstrated in this passage. Perhaps this is something along the lines of what Paul meant when he said, my little children, of whom I travail again in birth till Christ be formed in you. He spoke of spiritual birth. And then there is one other great principle of the Christian life that's in this passage.

Principle D: The Crisis Reaction and Ordinary Day Discipline

57:16 I'll touch on it very quickly because time has taken wings on us. It's that old principle of the crisis reaction. We saw it in that woman. Now the prophet is faced with a crisis.

57:27 Where does he go? Into the very chamber that has been the witness of his prayers in days that were very ordinary. You remember this was the chamber made that he might carry on communion with God. And it was his familiarity with the throne of grace in ordinary days that prepared him to be mighty at the throne of grace in a day of crisis.

57:55 And oh, what a lesson it contains for us. All of us desire to be mighty in prayer and faith in an hour of crisis, don't we? But very few of us are willing to pay the price of self-discipline necessary if we're to be mighty in prayer in the ordinary days. And it's sheer, dogged discipline that makes a man or woman, a boy or girl, mighty in prayer in the ordinary days.

58:32 And most of us are just too soft. We've succumbed too much to the please-yourself-do-your-own-thing mentality that has cursed our nation and is sending it quickly into hell. Do your own thing. Make your own mark.

58:54 Pursue your own goals. That garbage is just being, as it were, thrown at us from every advertisement, from every article in a woman's magazine, and from every media, every means by which the media impinge upon our minds. And it's so hard in an atmosphere like that to push yourself to the place of prayer when the flesh cries for more sleep, cries for a little relaxing, non-thought reading, an innocent hour or two in front of the TV, when everything in our flesh says, take it easy! And it's an ordinary day, no crisis.

59:37 No one's discovered an infuriating, terrible tumor in our wives. No one has told us that our husbands are in the intensive care with a massive heart attack, or no other crisis. It's just an ordinary day with our ordinary needs and the ordinary demands of life. We fall prey to spiritual carelessness and the lack of discipline.

60:03 And then the crisis comes and we feel so strange when we go running to God. Don't we? We feel like we're in a strange place. Not Elisha.

60:14 When he went into that room and faced death, that was the room where he had wrestled many times with his God. There was nothing qualitatively new. A little more intensified, but nothing qualitatively new. Great principle, dear child of God.

60:34 Oh, that we may renew whatever disciplines are necessary. Be faithful and mighty in prayer in the ordinary days. That we may react as true men and women of God in the days of great crisis. And then I close by suggesting that the passage not only contains a powerful vindication of the Lord's claims, a vivid demonstration of vital principles of the Christian life, but it contains a striking illustration in contrast.

Conclusion: The Striking Contrast with the Greater than Elisha

61:06 You see, if death is going to yield to Elisha, it will yield only an answer to prayer, but a greater than Elisha came. And when he faced death, all he needed to do was to speak a word. Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. Lazarus!

61:34 And he came. You see, the prophets were just prophets with a lowercase p. They all point to that final and great prophet whom God had promised to send. And God had said that mighty works would be wrought by him.

61:54 But because he has been given the power of life and death as he himself claims in John 5, he manifests that power. He simply speaks and death obeys. And he tells us in John 5, the hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they shall come forth. My friend, this is a striking contrast.

62:22 Elisha is a pattern. He is an example. He is a monument of the grace of God. But Elisha must be called from his grave by the greater than Elisha.

62:38 And when he calls him out of his grave, he'll call you out of yours and me out of mine. To stand in his presence and to hear his sentence enter or depart. You may have sat here tonight and said, oh, that's an interesting story, but what do I have to do with Elisha? Well, in a sense, very little.

63:03 But the greater than Elisha, of whom Elisha was bought, a poor and incomplete prefiguring, with him you must have dealings. For he will one day summon you out of your grave with a word. You'll stand before him. You'll hear him say enter or depart.

63:26 May God grant that seeking refuge in his mercy and grace, seeking pardon in the way appointed, you may hear him say in that day, enter into the joy of thy Lord. Well, may God be pleased to give to us who have been called out of death by the word of our Savior a fresh appreciation for all that he has done for us so that as we come to his table our hearts may well up and overflow with love and gratitude to him who has given us life in himself. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for this portion of your word and for all of the helpful instruction it contains. Be pleased to write it upon our hearts and grant us grace to see it worked out in our lives. Continue with us as we come to these moments of sacred remembrance. May our hearts be inflamed with new measures of love to him who loved us and gave himself for us.

64:50 May our faith be strengthened as we take of the bread and of the cup. Oh, may the Lord Jesus himself sit with us at his own table, hear our prayer, and draw near to us. Receive our thanks for your presence, for your word, for the Holy Spirit, for all of the gifts that are ours because of your love to us in Christ. Receive then our thanks.

65:23 We plead through him who loved us and gave himself for us. Amen.