Pointing to Christ in Living and Dying

2 Kings 13:14-21

Welcome! Today we come to the end of our series on Elisha. Throughout the series we have mentioned that the story of Elisha’s life serves as a kind of foreshadowing of the life of Jesus. Now that we have been through most of the events of Elisha’s life, I want to briefly discuss these similarities together. For me it is quite a striking picture.

I want to start by summarizing similarities between Elijah the Tishbite and John the Baptist. We can say that Elijah was a “forerunner” for Elisha, and John was a forerunner for Jesus. The New Testament writers clearly understood this; in Matthew 11:13-15 and Matthew 17:10-13, John is called “the Elijah to come.” You can also read a prophecy pointing from Elijah to a future person who is very like him. People at the time of the gospels knew of this prophecy, and many wondered whether John the Baptist actually was Elijah. Where is this prophecy? Significantly, it is in the very last verses of the Old Testament, in Malachi 4:5-6. Talk of the Elijah to come closes the Old Testament, and talk of the new Elijah who has come is one of the first topics of each of the gospels. 

Leading in Difficult Times

2 Kings 6:24-8:15

Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. - 2 Kings 6:24 

There seems to have been some time that had passed (maybe years) since the memory of Elisha leading the Syrian band of invaders into the city of Samaria and then having the king of Israel Jehoram (son of Ahab) feed them and let them go. This time was enough to make them forget how powerful the God of Israel was. This time, instead of a small band of invaders, the King of Syria Benhadad gathered a large army and he went with them. The king of Israel was afraid because he was grossly outnumbered. So he shut himself up in the city because the walls of Samaria were strong. 

There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver and a quarter of a cab of seed pods (dove’s dung) for five shekels. - 2 Kings 6:25

Helping Others to See

II Kings 6:8-23

Welcome! Today we continue our series on the prophet Elisha. As we have been going through this series over the past two months or so, we have seen that there is benefit in looking at the events of Elisha’s life on many levels. On one level are the accounts themselves, looking at them in the historical and cultural contexts of the Israelites in that period of history around 800 years before Christ. As we have talked about before, this was a turbulent and troubled time in Israel’s history. The nation built from 12 tribes had for some time been split into two, called Israel and Judah, a split that went back to the times of the generation after Solomon. The land of Judah, which included Jerusalem, the site of the Temple, oscillated back and forth between following God and giving themselves to the false gods worshiped by the people around them. The land of Israel, however, pretty much uniformly worshiped false gods and adopted many of the detestable practices of the peoples who were around them. Pretty much every king of Israel was described in negative terms; in contrast, at least a few of the kings of Judah had good things said about them. In Israel, because of the people’s wickedness, God basically removed His protection over the land, and there were frequent conflicts with their neighbors. Eventually this led to the complete overtaking of the land by their enemies. The passage we will look at today focuses on one of these conflicts with their neighbors.

Bringing up the Next Generation

II Kings 5:20-6:7

Good morning! We continue today with our series on the prophet Elisha. Last week, Carl took us through the account of the miraculous healing of Naaman the commander of the army of Aram. Elisha brought about this amazing miracle to heal Naaman of leprosy or a similar debilitating and fatal skin disease. It wasn’t Elisha that healed Naaman, of course. The Lord healed, but Elisha was one of the people that God worked through to bring about Naaman’s healing. Even more exciting than the healing is the transformation of the heart of Naaman. This idol-worshiping pagan from Aram comes to Israel as a last resort to seek healing. What he finds instead is the wonder-working power of God. He will no longer bow to idols who fail to heal. He even takes back dirt from Israel so that he can worship the true God in Aram on the blessed soil of God’s chosen land.

After his healing, Naaman returned to Elisha’s house in joy to bless him with gifts, literally a king’s ransom in gold, silver, and royal clothing. Yet, Elisha would not accept even one gift. We’re going to pick up the narrative after Elisha has turned him down and told Naaman to “Go in peace,” but first, let’s pray.

Being Used by God to Heal

II Kings 5:1-19

Welcome! Today we continue our series on the prophet Elisha. Last week, John Bullard told us about the events that could be named “Death in the Pot” – about how in the middle of a gathering of faithful believers in God, someone threw food into their communal pot of stew or soup or whatever they were making that made them sick. But as they cried out in fear and in pain, God brought them healing through Elisha. Also in last week’s passage, God had a person come seemingly out of the blue with some bread. It was not enough to feed the large group, but God, again through Elisha, miraculously multiplied the food so as to adequately feed everyone.

This latter miracle of course reminds us of how Jesus similarly multiplied food to feed a large crowd – a much larger multitude than the group with Elisha, and Jesus did it from a much smaller starting portion. This is a repeated pattern in Scripture – we see that Jesus’ miracles generally were not just completely new, out-of-the-blue things, but were enhancements and fulfillments of things that happened in the Old Testament. One reason for this is that it helped the people to know that Jesus really was the promised Messiah mentioned again and again in the Old Testament. And the supremacy of His miracles over those that had gone before also meant that the earlier miracles were only hints or shadows of what was to come – that Christ, Son of God, and God Himself, was to come to redeem us and save us from the penalty our sins deserved.