9/15/24 2 Kings 4:38-44 “The Antidote for Your Stew”

12 Sep 9/15/24 2 Kings 4:38-44 “The Antidote for Your Stew”

9/15/24   2 Kings 4:38-44       “The Antidote for Your Stew”

Every week I have to find a way to start a sermon.  I read a lot so I also reject many ideas because they just don’t seem to fit.  You may think that what I say at the very beginning of many of my sermons doesn’t fit exactly but that is a whole other topic.  Anyway, I was reading about a week ago from a pastor, and I don’t remember his name so this isn’t an original thought from me, who talked about our prayer life.  He stated that we often make a big mistake in our prayers.  He said that we often times pray about something and expect God to answer in a certain way.  Then we sit and wait.  Now we should expect an answer but it won’t always be in the way we want. We all know this.  He said that our mistake is to sit and wait.  And I agree with him 100%.  When we pray often times God answers when we take an action ourselves.  So if we are praying for health, go to or do what the doctor says.  If we are praying for a job, keep on applying.  See how it works.  God often answers our prayers through our actions.  So, as I was reading today’s Scripture, I couldn’t help wonder how this fit in and then it hit me.  Things happened because Elisha did something.  I’m a little slower than some of you so it takes me a little longer.  Anyway, we are talking about Elisha today and a couple of the miracles that he performed.  Let’s see if we can learn from one of the greatest prophets ever.

I read another article this week about cooking in Louisiana or Cajun cooking.  The author was trying to tell us that Cajun cooking is the best in the world.  They use all kinds of spices and they may even make up a few as far as I’m concerned.  Now, the author did have to admit that the people down there will eat just about anything.  If it moves, then it is fair game for the old cooking pot.  My thinking on this is that if you are going to put anything and everything in the cooking pot, then you will need a lot of spices to make it edible.  In a similar vein, I was walking in the woods with a cousin of mine one summer at a family reunion.  She was 15 years older than me so I knew of her more than I knew her.  Anyway, she had been out of the area for many years but she could still walk along and tell us which wild berries were edible and which would make us sick.  I think there is an art in being able to identify things from the wild of nature and fix them in such a way that they taste pretty good.  But sometimes we mess up and that is what happened in our reading today.

Before we begin, I want us to remember just who Elisha was.  If you remember he was the protégé of Elijah.  Elijah was one of the select two who never suffered physical death in this world.  A chariot came and picked him up as Elisha watched.  But before Elijah left, Elisha was given a double portion of the spirit of Elijah.  Remember that Elijah was also one of the greatest prophets ever.  So Elisha was receiving some great, great power.  It is seen in the fact that there are 7 miracles named that are credited to Elijah.  When we read about Elisha, we read that he performed 14 miracles.  Today, we are looking at two of them.

First, I would like to take a quick look at the second miracle where Elisha feeds 100 men with 20 loaves.  He not only did this but there were leftovers.  Does this sound familiar?  Elisha calls on the Lord to help and He does.  Some people like to dismiss these miracles of Elisha because they don’t understand.  I would guess that the truth of the matter is that people don’t believe.  Elisha was a dedicated man of God.  He was not only a man of prayer but also a man of action.  Some of my favorite stories of the Old Testament concern Elisha.

We have to be careful that we don’t fall into this nonbelieving rut.  What Elisha did was a forerunner to Jesus Christ.  Elisha healed people, he brought the dead back to life, he blinded armies and he even made an axe head float.  These are some of the same kinds of things that Jesus did.  Elisha was very similar.  The difference was that Elisha was just a man who obeyed God and Jesus was part man and part God.  Therefore, we worship Jesus and we just have the utmost respect for Elisha.  As for me, I have no reason not to believe these stories in the Old Testament.  God was as active then as He is now.  We just have to be on the lookout for Him and His works.

So now let’s move to the story of the stew.  The first thing we read about is that there was a famine in the land.  I would hazard a guess here that we really don’t know much about famines in this area, but I think people in more desert-like areas do.  Although we rely on rain for our crops, we can usually get by with less rain because our soil holds moisture, but not so in a desert climate where a famine is worse than a drought.  No rain there means that people will be hungry.  However, these people are not only physically hungry but they are also spiritually hungry as Elisha is leading this band of prophets.

We have a spiritual famine going on right now in this country.  We probably have more preachers in this country than any other country in the world.  One would think that we would be a very Christian nation.  I think we all know that we are far from that.  Everyone is so busy chasing their personal agendas or dreams that we just don’t have time for God.  We are driven by materialism.  Then when we do get things rolling a bit, we start to criticize God.  We seem to think that if God doesn’t answer our wish list prayers that He doesn’t even exist or love us.  All this breeds widespread skepticism that becomes like a cancer.  We don’t believe in what the Bible says anymore.  The writers had to be wrong because they are human.   We end up blaming God because we can’t have our own way.  It is no wonder we have so many problems in this country.  We are in trouble just like the ancients were in trouble.  Every time the ancients strayed from God, they got in serious trouble as we all know from reading our Bible stories.

So we have this famine happening and we have this band of hungry prophets.  From what I can gather, there were probably around 10-20 men in this band.  There weren’t too many of them but it really doesn’t matter because they were all hungry.  So Elisha tells his servant to put on a pot of stew.  The only problem was that there was really nothing to put in the stew.

Let’s modernize this a little.  Suppose we were hungry prophets.  Who would we send out to get us some food?  What would usually happen is that we would send our younger people out to do this and that is fine.  That is what Elisha probably did.  So this person, young or old, whoever he is, goes out into the wild to find some food.  Well there is nothing out there because there has been no rain.  Instead he finds some herbs but you have to have something bulky in the stew or you’re just going to find herbal water.  If you are on a health kick, this might sound appealing but if you are hungry, this sounds terrible; herbal hot water!

So this guy finds a vine with some fruits on it which happen to be some sort of gourd.  I don’t know about you but my mom always told us that gourds were terrible to eat.  But this guy is ecstatic because there is something to go into the stew.  So he comes back to the camp with so many gourds that he has to use his cloak to carry them.  Then cuts up all these gourds, like Emeril or one of our popular chefs, and throws them in the pot.  This is going to be a good deal because they were not only going to have stew, but there would be some bulk, something in the stew.  This is as fine a feast as you can get.  Aren’t you getting hungry just thinking about this?  I’m here preaching wishing it was one of our pot luck Sundays.

The next thing we know is that these men start to cough and spit because they know that the stew is poison.  They are eating a pot of poisoned stew.  This story seems to be innocent enough until I ask you this question.  What pot of poisoned stew are you eating?  Remember that the man who rounded up this food did it with the best of intentions but he still poisoned everyone.  So you may be eating from a pot of good intentions but it is as poisonous as a rattlesnake.

Now you may think that you are pretty safe from Satan’s poison but you are not.  That is because Satan is much, much more powerful than you.  Who do you think is telling you that you really don’t have to tithe?  Or who tells you that you don’t have to be involved in church committees, programs or fellowship?  These are just a couple of the poison stews and we find them in our churches.  Think of what we find when you walk out those doors.  Satan is everywhere and he wants you.  He will plant whatever deception he can.  Your only defense is Jesus Christ.  If you don’t defend yourself against Satan with Jesus, then you aren’t defending at all.  Beware of the poisonous stew that thrives around you.

So we have these guys all choking and coughing.  They were probably rolling on the ground.  Anything you can think of about being poisoned, they were doing.  And even though they are in tremendous pain and anguish, they call out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!”

There is death in the pot.  Oh, how I wish that we would know when there is death in the pot.  Our world would be a different place if we did.

Now notice carefully what Elisha did.  He said get some flour and he put it in the stew.  Then they were able to eat it.  There are many people who dismiss this as a non-miracle because all Elisha did was put some flour in the stew.  They say that apparently Elisha knew that antidote for this particular type of poisoning.  I don’t buy into this but just supposing that it is true.  Then they miss the miracle.  The miracle then would be that Elisha, who knew the remedy, would be there at all.  If he isn’t there, then everyone dies.  No matter how we look at it there are two possible miracles.  Either God put Elisha in the right place at the right time or God helped Elisha by doing something to the flour to counteract the poison.  The way I look at it, either way, God helped them out.

So my question at this point is this, “How many times have you missed a miracle done by God?  How many times have you dismissed God by crediting science or hard work or how about just plain luck?”  That is how our society operates.  First of all, most people don’t have much of a prayer life.  If you aren’t praying to the maker of all things, then there really isn’t much of a chance that you will be giving God any credit.  When I think about the concept of luck or our abilities to do things well, I can only come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as luck, only God’s unexpected intervention.  Also God gives us all our abilities so we have to attribute them to God also.  There is nothing that God doesn’t do, unless, of course, it is something evil.

I have been called upon several times in the past few weeks, months and years to fix some poisoned stew.  Now first of all, I’m not Elisha so I can’t fix the stew or I don’t know the remedy to pour into it.  All I can do is give Godly advice.  Of course I pray for people and that is always a help.  But like I said in the beginning, that is only the start.  Then you have to do something.  I would suggest that you do things that are according to the Scriptures.  It is when you do things your own way, or do nothing, or anything that is contrary to Scripture that you get into trouble.

You see, the only thing that Jesus wants to do is help you.  Listen to Him when He tells you what to put in your poisoned stew.  You can be assured that He wants to help as He shows us in the last part of this reading when He had Elisha feed 100 men with very little food.  After He helps you out of your poison stew, then He just might bless you beyond what you can imagine.  And when He is done with that, He might bless you some more.

So the next time you think you have gotten a raw deal, when you think that everyone is against you or that nothing seems to work for you, think about Jesus.  Everywhere He went, there were people who hated Him.  They hated Him enough to kill Him.  When push came to shove; all his friends left Him so He was on His own.  If anyone was ever in the position to have a pity party, it would be Jesus but He would have none of that.  There is a writer who put this all very eloquently and I don’t know who wrote this but listen.

It’s called ‘One Solitary Life.’  He was born in an obscure village. He worked in a carpenter’s shop until he was thirty. He then became an itinerant preacher. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a house. He didn’t go to college; He had no credentials other than himself. . .  Twenty centuries have come and gone, yet today he is the central figure of the human race. All the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that have ever reigned have not affected the life of people on this earth as much as that: One Solitary Life. They try to portray His death as a martyr’s death instead of His vicarious, substitutionary atoning death for all men’s sin. They try to explain away His glorious resurrection with theories of their own small minds.

We get poisoned all the time.  Don’t ever get used to it.  Get up and do something about it.  If you don’t fix the poison right the first time, listen more closely so you can fix it the second time.  Jesus doesn’t want any poison in our lives.  He wants us to love each other regardless of whom we are or what we look like or what we do.  We are to love each other as we are as He loves us.  I feel pretty secure in this deal and I pray that each of you do also or are on the road to this.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.