2 Kings 6:24-31
The Crisis the Samaria
In 'The Crisis in Samaria,' Pastor Albert N. Martin expounds 2 Kings 6:24-31, detailing the horrific famine and cannibalism during the Syrian siege of Samaria. He argues that this crisis was the ultimate fulfillment of God's covenant curses for Israel's disobedience, as outlined in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Martin warns against humanistic interpretations of national calamities, pseudo-repentance, and hypocrisy, urging listeners to recognize God's grace as the only hope for both individuals and nations, even in the face of profound sin.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 8 sections · 63 min
- Introduction to the Crisis in Samaria 0:03
- The Crisis in its General Description: Siege and Famine 8:00
- The Crisis in its Shocking Details: Extreme Prices and Cannibalism 12:55
- The Crisis in its Ultimate Cause: God's Covenant Curses 22:00
- The Crisis in its False Attempts at Resolution: King Jehoram's Pseudo-Repentance and Blame 33:14
- Abiding Message: Beware of Humanistic Interpretations of Calamities 40:26
- Abiding Message: Beware of False Prescriptions and Hypocrisy 47:48
- Glimmer of Hope: God's Grace Amidst Judgment 53:38
Key Quotes
“Ultimately, I hope to study with you the entire incident under the... The two general headings, the crisis in Samaria, chapter 6, verses 24 to 31, and then the resolution of the crisis, chapter 6, in verse 32, through to the end of chapter 7.”
“I've not gone beyond the words of Scripture. I've not embellished them with rhetoric. I've not drawn them out with flights of imagination. I've simply explained the words of God and I remind you these are as much the words of God as John 3.16.”
“You see what God is saying? The climactic expression of hardness and impenitence against lesser judgments will be an abandonment to such heartless inhumanity as will cause the people of God, to be guilty of cannibalism.”
“Few things are more pathetic than the bumbling of unspiritual men in seeking to resolve a national crisis which has spiritual causes.”
“You talk about moral and spiritual insanity here it is.”
“beware of a humanistic interpretation of national calamities and crises”
“what's worse in the extremity of physical hunger to eat the flesh of a living child that is put to death to gratify hunger or wantonly simply to put a child to death to cover up the fruit of lust or the inconvenience of being a parent”
“God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us oh my sinner friend how can you face grace like that and go on in your sin doesn't it confound you doesn't it bring you into a state of holy bafflement why should this God against whom I've so wickedly and willfully sinned why should he come with blessings unasked and unsought and the answer is he's a God of grace”
Applications
All listeners
- Beware of a humanistic interpretation of national calamities and crises, recognizing that God's moral government applies to all nations and sin is a reproach to any people.
- Beware of the false prescriptions for deliverance given by unspiritual men with a smattering of external religion, as outward signs of repentance without inward change are insufficient.
- Beware of the hypocrisy which is shocked at the crimes of others while insensitive to its own sin, particularly comparing the horror of cannibalism to the sin of abortion and the spiritual neglect of children.
- As individuals, embrace God's grace in His dear Son, recognizing that despite willful sin, God offers unasked and unsought blessings through Christ's death.
- As a nation, plead for God's grace, not justice or desert, in the face of national sins, crying out for a gracious visitation of the Spirit.
- Pray for Christian leaders, including the President, that they would be bold to speak God's Word and call the consciences of those in power to consider the changeless law of the living God.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 69 paragraphs, roughly 63 minutes.
Introduction to the Crisis in Samaria
Now will you give attention to the reading of the word of God as found in 2 Kings chapter 6, 2 Kings chapter 6, and beginning with verse 24, and I shall conclude the reading with verse 31, 2 Kings chapter 6, beginning with verse 24.
And it came to pass after this that Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, gathered all his host, and went up and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria. And behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of doves' dung for five pieces of silver. And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help my lord, O king.
And he said, If the Lord do not help thee, when shall I help thee?
Out of the threshing floor, or out of the vine press? And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him.
And I said unto her, Give thy son that we may eat him, and she hath hid her son. And it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes. Now he was passing by upon the wall, and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh. Then he said, God do so to me, and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him, this will be.
As we return this evening to our studies in the life and ministry of this towering figure among the prophets, the man of God, Elisha, it should be our desire to have a feel, as it were, for this whole general context in which the life and ministry of the man of God are recorded for us. And since it has been some weeks since we studied, in this aspect or this segment of the word of God, I think the best and quickest way to give you a feel for the portion that has been read in your hearing is simply to read several paragraphs from the excellent commentary of Edersheim on the Old Testament, and speaking concerning this very paragraph which I have read in your hearing, and then the subsequent narrative in which God, wonderfully, comes to the deliverance of his people in a most miraculous way, Edersheim says, the sacred narrative now resumes the record of public events in Israel, although still in close connection with the ministry of Elisha, which, at this crisis,
appears to be the primary factor in the history of the Northern Kingdom, that is, the ten northern tribes of Israel. Remembering that it is written from the prophetic standpoint, we do not here look for a strictly chronological arrangement of events, but rather expect to find the events grouped according to the one grand idea which underlies this history. Then, after a few words concerning the precise timing of this event, he raises the question, why should God come to the aid of his people in so signal a way that God can help them? Why should God come to the aid of his people in so signal a way that God can help them?
Why should God come to the aid of his people in so signal a way that God can help them? Why should God come to the aid of his people in so signal a way as is recorded in the seventh chapter in this marvelous deliverance from the siege and from the famine? And he says, concerning that question, the answer is not difficult, and it will throw light upon the course of this history. Evidently, it was a period of comparative indecision before the final attitude of the nation towards the Lord was taken, and with it the ultimate fate of Israel, decided.
Active hostility to the prophet as God's representative and to the worship of Jehovah had ceased for the most part, and even these were tokens for good, and there were some apparent tokens of a return to the Lord. But, as events showed, there was not any real repentance, and what to a superficial observer might seem the beginning of a calm was only the lull before the end of the world. And so, as he says, this interval of indecision or token of pending decision must be taken into account. The presence of the prophet in Israel meant the final call of God to Israel and the possibility of national repentance and forgiveness. Every special intervention of God, such as the one that is described in this section of 2 Kings, carried with it the message that God could indeed help and deliver his people if only his people would turn to him with the repentance which the prophet had enjoyed. And the more minute and apparently unimportant the occasions for such intervention and deliverance were, the more strikingly would all this appear. It is with such thoughts in our minds that we must study the history of the story of Israel.
And so, as we have seen, we must study the history of Israel. We must study the history of Israel. We must study the history of Israel. We must study the history of Israel.
We must study the history of Israel. We must study the siege and the miraculous relief of Samaria. So I trust that gives you a fresh feel for this portion of the word of God. For as I have reminded you again and again and again and again and you are reminded once more tonight, we are not reading interesting little historical snippets.
We are reading, as Mr. Lush reminded us, the history of redemption. God is fulfilling his grace and the great design to redeem a people for himself. And the great channel through which that work of redemption will flow is the nation of Israel.
And all the while he is moving to that time when he will send his son. He is manifesting his own moral government of men and nations as he deals with his own people. And in the passage before us tonight, the passage that I have entitled The Crisis Insight, Samaria, we have a very sobering, in some senses, an almost ugly display of the human heart. And yet believing that every word of God is given for our profit, we should not feel any reluctance to come to this portion seeking to hear the voice of God and to know the mind of God in it.
Ultimately, I hope to study with you the entire incident under the... The two general headings, the crisis in Samaria, chapter 6, verses 24 to 31, and then the resolution of the crisis, chapter 6, in verse 32, through to the end of chapter 7.
The Crisis in its General Description: Siege and Famine
But tonight, time will permit only an examination of the crisis in Samaria. And as we attempt to come to grips with the content of this passage and the message contained in it, consider with me the fact that it is not only the crisis, but the crisis of the world. Consider with me, first of all, the crisis in its general description. And that's given to us in verses 24 and the first part of verse 25.
The crisis in its general description. And it came to pass after this that Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, gathered all his host and went up and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria. Now, the precise significance of verse 24, the beginning part of it, is difficult to ascertain.
What does the writer mean when he says it came to pass after this? Does he mean that immediately after the events recorded in the previous paragraph concerning these marauding bands of the Syrians, you'll remember, who were continually defeated because God was giving the military siege and secrets to Elisha and he was passing them on to the leaders of his own nation and then they were led blind to Samaria and sent back to their own land of Syria. And the passage closes with the statement and the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel. Does it mean that immediately after this, Ben-Hadad draws the conclusion that little commando raids will never do the trick, so I must have a full-scale military warfare and does he come then in a relatively short period of time upon the Israelites? Well, that's a possible meaning, but probably the significance is not to be pressed in terms of any close chronological proximity. It's an indefinite phrase. Sometime after these events, in most probability, after the memory of the gracious deliverance of the people of Israel, of God on behalf of his people and the kindness of God to these Syrian marauders,
after these things had drifted from the level of present consciousness and something of the lust for power and the passion for military conquest again becomes an obsession with Ben-Hadad II who is king of Syria and leader of the host at this time, after these, he now comes with full-scale warfare against the ten northern tribes. And the general description is that he comes with all his hosts to the capital city of the northern kingdom which is Samaria. And as he comes, the crisis is described in general under two basic headings. There is the crisis of a military war and then there is the crisis of a famine. Notice the language. The king of Syria came with all his hosts, went up and besieged Samaria.
That is, with his army, he surrounded the city and made it impossible for the people to leave the confines of the city walls. This was a common military tactic in those days when cities were surrounded by walls for their own protection. Now it's difficult to ascertain whether the famine came as a result of the siege or whether the siege came as a strategic military strategy when it was noticed that there was a famine in Samaria. It could be that by surrounding the city the people were cut off from their farmlands, they were cut off from the ability to gather their crops, and so the initial stages of the siege created the famine. Or it could be that having received information concerning the famine, as a wise military leader, Ben-Hadad and his troops seized this opportunity to come and surround the city knowing that they could not hold out for long because their food supplies were very limited. In either case, these facts are clear. The crisis in Samaria, the crisis in Samaria, is a crisis arising from two visible causes, a military siege and a dearth of food.
The Crisis in its Shocking Details: Extreme Prices and Cannibalism
It is a grave, a desperate, and a grievous set of circumstances. Having considered then the crisis in its general description as given to us in the opening verses of the paragraph, now, secondly, consider the crisis in its shocking, shocking details, beginning with the latter part of verse 25 through to verse 29. And behold, our attention is directed to some of the shocking details of the results of this crisis arising from a military siege and an attendant famine. And behold, and as the details, the shocking details of the crisis are given, they likewise fall into two categories. There is a shocking detail with respect to the price paid for elementary food supplies, and then a shocking detail with regard to the atrocities committed to obtain adequate food supplies. The text says, Behold, during this famine, that an ass's head was sold for a price, that an ass's head was sold for a price, that an ass's head was sold for a price, that an ass's head was sold for a price, that an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver. that an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver.
Now an ass or a donkey was a very necessary commodity for the life of any middle eastern city, for the life of any middle eastern city, any middle eastern economy. It was a beast of burden. It was that animal that bore the brunt of transporting goods from one place to another. And a man would not kill his donkey his ass upon any light occasion. Furthermore, according to the Levitical stipulations, it was an unclean animal. And if you know anything about what happens to animals that are rendered at a butcher shop, you get the least amount of edible substance from the head of that animal. I was in a hog rendering shop once where their motto was, where everything is used but the squeal in the pig. And it was interesting to see how little was used from the head of the animal. And yet in describing in almost shocking, in nothing less than shocking
and graphic details the extremities to which they were pressed, we are told that the head, the most unedible, the most unproductive part of an animal, and that of an unclean animal was sold for nothing. Nothing less than about two pounds of silver. Now that's not two pounds English sterling, that's two pounds, a kilo of silver. Now you figure that out in terms of today's market, and you realize that it was only the wealthy that it could afford what we would say was the most disgusting fare as far as food was concerned. And furthermore, we are given this detail that the fourth part of a cattle, a cow, a pig, a pig, a pig, a pig, a pig, a pig, a cab of dove's dung was sold for five pieces of silver. And some of the commentators so shocked that things would be brought to such an extremity that people would be using either the dove's dung as fuel to cook their meager fare, or had come to such extremities that they were actually using this for sustenance, have tried to say that it refers to some kind of an oriental chickpea or something else. But the text really does not warrant that. It's telling us that something as insignificant
as a little handful of dove's dung, of bird dung, was sold for that which in terms of current weights and measurements would be two full ounces of silver. I say the crisis is set before us in shocking details with respect first of all to the price that was paid for everything. If this is what was paid for an ass's head and for a small handful of dove's dung, it's obvious that the most wealthy were in dire straits. One can only imagine the condition of the poor. But then the crisis in its shocking details goes on to one of the most horrible incidents recorded in all of Holy Scriptures, the incident of the atrocities committed to obtain the food of the poor. In fact, it's so important that we are thinking about the food supply that we are talking about now. Why? Because thelishly there is a great deal of wilful conspiracy to charge the poor into
increasing the food supply. They are telling us that the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, apparently surveying the military situation, seeking to be aware of the state of his own people. And as he is passing upon the wall, suddenly a cry pierces the air, a cry that no doubt the king has heard famine, and a woman cries, Help my Lord, O King! Having heard that cry many times, he responds with what can only be regarded as a form of cynicism. If the Lord does not help thee, when shall I help thee? You cry for help, woman. If help doesn't come directly from heaven, how can I help you? You know as well as I do that all our threshing floors are bare. Shall I help you out of a threshing floor that has no wheat to be threshed? Shall
I help you out of a winepress that has no grapes to be placed in it? And probably out of a mingled sense of anger and frustration and confusion, may I say something that perhaps only leaders can understand. The King responds to this cry for help. Help my Lord, O King! Help my Lord, O King! Help my Lord, O King! Help my Lord, O King! Help my Lord, O King! Help my Lord, O King! Help my Lord, O King! Help my Lord, O King! Help my Lord, O King! Help my Lord, O King! With this cynical response, but sensing that in her cry was something more than an ordinary plea, he does not walk on. But verse 28 says, the King said unto her, What aileth thee? Well, it's obvious, you see, that her problem is an intensified problem. It is more than the normal pressure of the famine and the siege, which is evident across the face of the whole populace of the city of Samaria, Maria. He senses that there is something more either in her cry or in the look upon her face. We do not know, but something arrests him, and he knows that there is a plea for something beyond the ordinary cry for help. And so he asked her, What aileth thee? And then she responds with
these gruesome details. And she answered, This woman, no doubt pointing to a woman who was in close proximity to her, this woman said unto me, Give thy son that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. So she recounts a covenant that was made between her and a fellow Israelite with respect to the eating of their own infant children. So we boiled my son and did eat him. And I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son that we may eat him. And she hath hid her son, and he hath eaten him. But here this woman gives forth in artless simplicity the gruesome details of the cannibalism in which she and her friend engaged with regard to her own offspring, and now her sense of injustice that her friend is not keeping her part of the bargain. She's had the audacity to hide her son. I'm hungry. We made an agreement. In the flesh of my own son,
satisfied my belly yesterday and now I demand that my hunger be satisfied by the flesh of my friend's son.
I say the crisis is given to us in its shocking details.
I've not gone beyond the words of Scripture. I've not embellished them with rhetoric. I've not drawn them out with flights of imagination. I've simply explained the words of God and I remind you these are as much the words of God as John 3.16.
The Crisis in its Ultimate Cause: God's Covenant Curses
Now then, having considered the crisis in its general description, the crisis in its shocking details, consider with me in the third place the crisis in its ultimate cause. The crisis in its ultimate cause. At this point as we face the sickening, the disgusting reality of this incident, we must ask the question, do the Scriptures give us any clue as to why this crisis reached such proportions? Does the word of God give us any answer as to why two women, in violation of all the natural sensitivities of motherhood, riding roughshod over all the special revelation of God given to them, as those who stood under the covenant of Moses with respect to the sanctity of human life, is there any clue in Scripture as to how two women could stoop to such frightening depths as to become cannibals?
And the word of God does give us the answer. And it's given to us explicitly in two portions of the earlier revelation of the book that we hold in our hands. Will you turn please to Leviticus chapter 26?
As we allow the Scriptures to be their own interpreter, Leviticus chapter 26.
In the 26th chapter of Leviticus, verses 1 and 2 are a condensed appeal of the living God to his people with respect to obedience to himself.
And then beginning with verse 3 through to verse 13, God gives the special promises that will come, if his people obey him and keep the terms of his covenant. And notice what some of those promises are. Verse 5. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time, and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
And I will give you peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid, and I will cause evil beasts to cease out of the land. Neither shall the sword go through your land, and ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword, and five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. Here is the promise of God that if they will walk in his statutes, verse 3, and keep his commandments, God will bless them, in terms of productivity that will result in the supply of their fundamental needs for food from one year to another, and they will never know defeat before their enemies, but they shall be conquerors in their military endeavors. But then beginning with verse 14, God begins to enunciate the threats of the judgment that will come if they will not obey him, but if ye will, and if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments, and if ye shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhor mine ordinances, then God says, I will do certain things, and you have a progression of judgments that are pronounced upon the nation
if the covenant is broken by disobedience. Verse 21, and if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you. And then God goes on to say, if these plagues do not result in repentance and reformation, then I will intensify my judgments upon you. And in the pattern of this passage, the climax is reached in verse 27.
And if ye will not for all this, in other words, if all of these lesser judgments will not be broken, will not become my voice calling you to repentance and reformation and to renewed obedience to the terms of the covenant that I have made with you, if none of these things will avail, and if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me, then I will walk contrary unto you in wrath, and I will chastise you seven times for your sins, and ye shall, shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. You see what God is saying? The climactic expression of hardness and impenitence against lesser judgments will be an abandonment to such heartless inhumanity as will cause the people of God, to be guilty of cannibalism. So when the cannibalism appears in Samaria, it has a cause.
It is an expression of the judgment of God coming to its most heightened expression in the nation of Israel.
Then in a parallel passage in Deuteronomy 28, we have a similar cycle of promises of blessing in the path, of obedience, curses and judgment in the path of disobedience. The blessings in the first 14 verses, the curses in verses 15 and following, and again, they come to a climactic expression in Deuteronomy 28 and verse 52. And they shall besiege thee in all thy gates until thy high and fortified walls come down wherein thou trustest throughout all thy land. And they shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land which the Lord thy God hath given thee. And thou shalt eat the flesh of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters whom the Lord thy God hath given thee in the siege and in the distress wherein thine enemies shall distress thee. The man that is, tender among you and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother. You see, he doesn't even trust his own brother.
He wonders when his brother looks at him, is he looking at me with a view to wondering how I'll taste for tomorrow's lunch? It's exactly what God is saying. Suspicion will grow between brother, between the wife of his own bosom and toward the remnant of his children so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat because he hath nothing left him in the siege and in the distress wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates. And now one of the most moving passages in all of scripture.
Listen to it. The tender and delicate woman among you who would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness. Her eye shall be evil toward the heart and the husband of her bosom toward her son toward her daughter toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet and toward her children whom she shall bear for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and in the distress wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in thy gates.
Are you moved by the reading of a passage like that? God says, as a result of disobedience to His law, as a result of hardness to His judgments that follow upon that disobedience, the chastisements which are a call to repentance and reformation, He says, it will reach the place where the woman who is so delicate in her femininity that she would not so much as step out of her tent with a bare foot and get the dust of the ground upon her delicate feminine face that will carve up the fruit of her and eat it and not even belch. God says this would come as His judgment. So the crisis in Samaria is not only described for us in general details, it is not only set before us in a general way and then set before us in its shocking details, but the crisis is explained for us with reference to its ultimate cause. And that ultimate cause was the fulfillment of the promise of God, the same living God
who in the previous incident confounded His enemies by giving to the prophet Elisha the information of every military move of the king and of his commanding troops, the same God who when He had those enemy soldiers, in His hand, could have slain them, showed Himself gracious by saying, no, feed them well and send them back to Syria. It is that same God of grace, that God of kindness, that God of tenderness, who now so gives up these women to the promised threats of the covenant that in cold blood they can eat the flesh, of their own bodies. Well, then, we must hurry on to consider briefly the crisis in its false attempts of resolution.
The Crisis in its False Attempts at Resolution: King Jehoram's Pseudo-Repentance and Blame
We've looked at the crisis in its general description, its shocking details, its ultimate cause. Now, notice the crisis in its false attempts of resolution.
This is set before us with respect to the activity of King Jehoram. And it came to pass, verse 1, verse 30, when the king heard the words of the woman that he rent his clothes. Now he was passing by upon the wall and the people looked and behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh. Then he said, God do so to me and more also if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat, shall stand on him this day.
Few things are more pathetic than the bumbling of unspiritual men in seeking to resolve a national crisis which has spiritual causes. I say few things are more pathetic than the bumblings of unspiritual men seeking to resolve a national crisis which has spiritual causes. And here we have the crisis in the false attempts of its resolution. Once again, there are two strands of thought.
There is the first, first of all, the false attempt to resolve the crisis by what I have called a parading of the external signs of a pseudo-repentance. Walking upon the wall, the king suddenly tears his clothes and underneath is a hair shirt. People looking upon him say, oh, look at the signs that the king's heart is broken before God. That the word of the prophet has apparently come through to him as no doubt the prophet Elisha was calling the nation to these very passages which I've read from Leviticus and Deuteronomy and saying to them, look, you've come to the edge of the divine dealings. All of the lesser judgments have not availed. Now you've come to the final judgment. Children are being eaten by their own parents and calling them to repentance.
And suddenly they see a king tear his clothes and underneath is laid bare a hair shirt. Those of you familiar with your Bibles know that this was one of the signs of a man who was humbled and chastened before God. You remember in Jonah chapter 3 the king proclaimed a fast and he himself sat in sackcloth and ashes and God calls his people again and again to the rending of their hearts and not alone the rending of their hearts and the garments but it's obvious from the very next verse verse 31 that the king was only going through a pseudo-repentance. He was merely parading the external signs of what God intended should be the reflection of an inward disposition of the heart.
Then the second false attempt at resolution was to blame the servant of God who laid bare the true cause of the calamity. And in his anger he cries out imagine now with all the signs of repentance upon him externally he cries out with an oath God do so to me and more also if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day.
Now there's only one way to make sense of that and that is to assume that Elisha as every true prophet was calling the people back to the terms of the covenant of God. The prophet was denounced in departure and declension from Jehovah and his law. And this man Jehoram shows himself to be the son of his father Ahab. For you'll remember in 1 Kings what happened when the nation was also on that occasion under the grip of a frightening famine and it was a famine you'll remember brought about by God through the prediction of Elijah the man of God who said there shall be no rain nor dew but a cold according to my word and when Ahab meets the man of God Ahab the wicked king who's led the nation into its idolatrous worship of Baal and is the very cause of this judgment yet when he meets the man of God what does he say to him? 1 Kings 18 verse 17 Ahab said unto him is it thou thou troubler of Israel? If we can get rid of you Elijah we'd get rid of our troubles. And you'll remember it was the wife of the man of that wicked man Ahab that infamous woman Jezebel and it's almost as though Jehoram is quoting her words 1 Kings 19 and verse 2 then Jezebel
sent a messenger unto Elijah saying so let the gods do to me and more also if I make not thy life as the life of one of them that is one of the slain prophets of Baal by tomorrow about this time she says in the name of the gods whom I serve within 24 hours I'll take the life of the prophet.
You talk about moral and spiritual insanity here it is.
The man of God who is Jehovah's representative in Israel calling the king and his people to remember God's gracious dealings with them to remember his kindness and favor in calling them out of Egypt taking them into a marriage bond promising to dwell amongst them and to be their God and they should be his people always all the graciousness of that covenant and then reminding them of the obligations of the covenant seeking as it were to sensitize consciences long since having slumbered and grown dull and calloused and yet in the blind passion of his own spiritual dullness and perversity he says well the way we'll resolve this problem is kill the prophet get rid of the man of God and in saying so he was saying get rid of God himself for the prophet was God's representative in Israel the living embodiment of the claims of Jehovah over his people well dear brothers and sisters this is the crisis in Samaria I wish we had time to go on and deal with the marvelous resolution of the crisis for this is a dark heavy foreboding
Abiding Message: Beware of Humanistic Interpretations of Calamities
ugly yes even a disgusting picture of the human heart but in the few minutes that remain in our study tonight let me seek to draw out several lines of application having examined the crisis in Samaria now consider with me the abiding message of the crisis in Samaria what does all of this say to us let me couch its message in the form of a warning for this passage it seems to me can only be handled in that context and the first warning is this beware beware of a humanistic interpretation of national calamities and crises beware of a humanistic interpretation of national calamities and crises now please listen carefully to what I have to say I fully acknowledge the folly of making a one to one equation between Israel as the covenant people and the United States or the western world and that has often been done and it has been a mishandling of scripture the United States and Canada and Great Britain and other segments of the western world are not
the extension of Israel God has made no special territorial national covenant commitments to western civilization but and listen carefully as God deals with the nation of Israel he is not merely dealing with them in terms of peculiar stipulations promises and privileges that belong only to Israel in terms of her peculiar function and destiny in the history of redemption but he is also illustrating in Israel eternal unchangeable moral principles of his own divine government for instance Proverbs 14 34 says righteousness exalteth a nation not just the nation of Israel but sin is a reproach to any people not just the people of Israel again Psalm 9 in verse 17 the wicked shall be turned into hell not just wicked Israelites and all the nations that forget God and so in the midst of God's dealings with Israel there are great principles of what we may call the administration of God's government among the nations of the earth
and here we have illustrated in the passage tonight one of those principles in the midst of a national crisis here is a king who looks upon that crisis with a pseudo religious perspective but ultimately a humanistic anti-God perspective if we can only rid ourselves of this troubler who is telling us that the cause of our calamity is our sin then things will work out we had a little bad luck with our crops we had a few unwise military moves but if we can just get rid of the whole idea that it has to do with vertical realities then we can get our minds down to the real business at hand oh my dear people how my heart is bled as I've pondered this passage in the light of the present state of our own nation and my cry to you is beware of humanistic interpretations of national calamities and national crises is there no relationship between the siege of our embassy in Iran and the blatant pornographic glut
on 42nd street in New York is there no relationship between our crippling economy and the blatant law supported foul perverted homosexual community that numbers several hundreds of thousands in San Diego is there no relationship to the boldness with which Russia has with military power marched into Afghanistan the textbooks in our schools which deny creation which say we come from apes the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God and yet we have in our own day the same reaction as was seen in King Jehoram if we can just get rid of these funny Christians who talk about sin and the law of God and unchangeable moral standards for human sexuality and the family and the home
if we could just get rid of all these narrow minded religious right wing bigots be free to show how we can build the great society let's remove the heads of the Elishas of our generation my friends beware of humanistic interpretations of national crises without claiming prophetic insight which would be fanaticism but simply looking at the obvious teaching of the word of God there is a direct relationship between the moral state of our nation and the national crises of our nation and if we the people of God don't have eyes to see it who is and if we allow ourselves to be brainwashed by all of the drivel and the rhetoric I don't care from what side it comes Republican Democratic Conservative it makes no difference stands on a national platform and says that the answer to our woes lies primarily in a different set of economic or political principles
Abiding Message: Beware of False Prescriptions and Hypocrisy
is a false position of our ills second warning that I see is the abiding message of this passage is this I've already hinted at it beware of the false prescriptions for deliverance given by unspiritual men with a smattering of external religion oh look at the king he's on the wall with his garments rent and his hair shirt showing oh isn't it wonderful to have a king who seeks the Lord's help in a crisis that very king says with his next breath let's take the head of the prophet and that he was serious about it is evident from the subsequent context because Elisha as we shall see is gathered with the elders probably having a prayer meeting praying that God would send his spirit to turn the hearts of people and God gives him an intimation he says ah here come the feet of that murderer and he says who would take my head this day it's a tragic thing when we have leaders who give lip service to Christianity and to the Bible and to religion and it lulls the populace to sleep saying oh well God's judgment
couldn't come on us we have leaders who are Christian without in any way entering a realm that is none of my business with regard to the true spiritual state of President Carter or any other national leader who names the name of Christ one thing is obvious there is not a one to my knowledge who has had the boldness to say on a national platform that our woes are the fruit of our sin and when President Carter stands with his Bible and says this book says thou shalt not murder and calls upon the conscience of the Supreme Court to reverse its decision that legitimizes legitimizes legitimizes I'm sorry the slaying of unborn infants and when he calls upon the Supreme Court to uphold the dignity of life by taking the life of wanton willful cold-blooded murderers then I shall begin to believe that there is some vital religion just enough religion to make people feel well God must be on our side oh yeah and Syrians is out there but look we got a king up on the wall with a hair shirt
everything's alright my friends it's going to take more than a hair shirt it's going to take more than the semblance and the smattering of a little bit of religion God says rend your heart and not your garment turn unto me with fasting and weeping and with mourning and the third warning that I see in the passage as its abiding message is this beware of the hypocrisy which is shocked at the crimes of others while insensitive to its own sin beware of the hypocrisy which is shocked at the crimes of others while insensitive to its own sin we read this passage and surely all of us feels a revulsion when we read it and think what it must have meant for a woman to stand there and talk so callously about eating someone's son and being hungry for the other son but the scripture says in Romans chapter 2 verses 1 to 3 and then verses 21 and following thou therefore that judges another doest thou the same thing thyself listen what's worse in the extremity of physical hunger to eat the flesh of a living child that is put to death
to gratify hunger or wantonly simply to put a child to death to cover up the fruit of lust or the inconvenience of being a parent at least hunger is a legitimate God given appetite isn't it it's a natural appetite and people who would be shocked at this passage would be shocked at this passage are not shocked to sign themselves in to the sterile operating room of an American hospital to get rid of a little fetal tissue as they call it oh may we beware of the hypocrisy that is shocked at the sins and crimes of others while insensitive to our own sin are we shocked at these women who would eat the flesh of their own wombs the awfulness of their own and destroy the bodies of their children my friends we ought to be shocked if we destroy the souls of our children by surrounding them with a climate of affluence and materialism carnal ease surrounding them with a climate in which there is no self-denial no proper set of priorities which will make it plain to our children that the soul is of
Glimmer of Hope: God's Grace Amidst Judgment
infinite worth in comparison to the body that eternity is of supreme concern in relationship to time are we shocked that a woman would eat her baby but not shocked that we would destroy the souls of our own offspring oh may we beware of the hypocrisy which is shocked at the crimes of others while insensitive to its own sin well this is a dark passage and if I had to close on this note my friends I think one night like this would be enough to drive me out of the ministry for a while but there is a glimmer of hope in all of this and we can only touch upon it as our closing note chapter 7 in verse 1 begins with these words and Elisha said hear ye the word of Jehovah thus saith Jehovah tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria then the captain on whose hand the king lean answered the man of God and said behold if God should make windows in heaven
might such a thing be now why in the world when the judgments of God are upon the nation for the people for their aggravated for its aggravated sin why when the judgments have reached this highest point according to Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 and there is no sign of national repentance when the king himself says get rid of Jehovah's representative why I ask you should God intervene in the back of the military siege and to relieve the family there is one reason he is a God of grace saying to I'm a God of grace and those people as we shall see were able to purchase that fine flour in abundance at a relatively cheap price not a one of them could go to his home with his bundle of flour saying we did it we earned it no no they'd have to say grace grace all of grace and thank God that that's the message that I bear to you tonight
you and I have broken the law of our creator I'm speaking to men and women young people in this place tonight you have violated God's holy law willfully knowingly deliberately and like that king you stand in defiance against God and like that king if you would could you'd lift the head from off every single preacher who tells you of your sin who reminds you of the claims of the almighty from the word of God you'd lift the head and yet you know what God does to such people he's opened heaven not to send down flour and meat but to send his own dear son God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us oh my sinner friend how can you face grace like that and go on in your sin doesn't it confound you doesn't it bring you into a state of holy bafflement why should this God against whom I've so wickedly and willfully sinned why should he come with blessings unasked and unsought and the answer is he's a God of grace oh that you may embrace his grace in his dear son
that your only hope is an individual and my dear friends that is our hope as a nation our hope is that God would be gracious if you pray plead anything don't plead justice don't plead desert don't plead anything but grace say oh God when our national sins are like the sins of the northern tribes they have come with ever increasing multiplicity and ever growing dimensions and we've been hardened to the rumblings of judgment and right at the point when we've been when we deserve to be crushed and annihilated Lord open the heavens and show that you're a God of grace oh as a Christian are you crying to God for a gracious visitation of the spirit for a gracious outpouring of the mighty power of God not because we deserve it but to demonstrate that if God ever turns to this nation surely surely amen the angels principalities powers will stand amazed at the grace of our God oh may we cry to God for such grace even against the backdrop
of this crisis in Samaria our Father we confess that our poor mortal minds and spirits cannot contain even a few moments of comfort and peace and peace in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and of the Holy Spirit and of the Holy Spirit upon the magnitude of your grace oh how we pray we plead show yourself gracious to our nation show yourself gracious to young men young women fathers mothers in this building tonight who have never repented of sin who have never fled to your son oh God show yourself gracious we have seen tonight the human heart in all of its ugliness but we thank you where sin abounds grace does much more abound oh give us a sight of that grace seal your word to our hearts receive our thanks for the gift of your word for the gift
of your spirit who opens our understanding to perceive its truth seal now to our hearts to our minds to our affections to our hearts rivet to our wills every precept every promise every bit of light that has come to us this day oh help us to be light and salt as we go out into our spheres of responsibility we do pray tonight for our president Lord you know his heart we would not dare to stand in the place of judging the validity of his Christian profession but oh how we long father to be a part that we shall see him carry himself and speak as a man whose mind is riveted to the word of God that he would call the conscience of senators and congressmen representatives and judges to consider the changeless law of the living God Lord we do rejoice when he is unembarrassed to be seen photographed with a bible in his hand but we long to hear the words of that book upon his lips coming home to the consciences of those with whom he has such great influence we pray for Christian leaders make them bold give them the wisdom of a Daniel
give them the wisdom of a Solomon oh our father we know not how to pray for we can only see the judgment that must come because of our sins as a nation hear our cry hear our feeble plea and answer us for the honor of your beloved son we pray in his worthy name amen
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
This passage describes the siege of Samaria, the severe famine, and the shocking act of cannibalism, forming the core narrative of the sermon.
This passage is expounded to reveal the ultimate cause of the crisis in Samaria, demonstrating that the cannibalism was a fulfillment of God's covenant curses.
This passage provides a parallel and even more vivid description of the covenant curses, specifically detailing the horrors of siege, famine, and cannibalism, reinforcing the sermon's argument about God's judgment.
Texts Expounded
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