Last night, Trever gave a message in our 6 PM service that was a wonderful reminder to all of us that our intrusive thoughts that are causing us sadness and shame are not from God, but they are from the enemy. Trever also challenged us not to give up before experiencing God’s victory in our lives. Since we looked back at the passing of the torch of Elijah and Elisha, I was going to touch on these two chapters today. It’s always a joy to me when God’s laying the same passages on the hearts of His ministers!

Today, we are going to focus on 2nd Kings 7. Let me give you the setting of the chapter. The King of Aram, or Syria, Ben-hadad had laid siege on the capital city of Israel, Samaria. This is a very successful war tactic used in history to starve out the residents of a city. They had the city surrounded and food was so scarce that the head of a donkey would sell for 80 pieces of silver, and a cup of dove’s dung was sold for 5 pieces of silver. There are 2 possibilities of what the dove’s dung was. It was either literally bird poop, or it was a collection of very low in nutrition flowers and vegetables mixed. Either way, it was not a good thing going for 5 pieces of silver.

People became so desperate that they were eating their children. In chapter six we meet a woman who did just that. When the King heard this, he became so angry and blamed Elisha. He said he was going to take Elisha’s head off his shoulders. He sends a messenger to Elisha, and then he heads to find him, himself. Now you’re caught up for Chapter 7!

2 Kings 7:1 Elisha replied, “Listen to this message from the Lord! This is what the Lord says: By this time tomorrow in the markets of Samaria, six quarts of choice flour will cost only one piece of silver,[a] and twelve quarts of barley grain will cost only one piece of silver.”

2 The officer assisting the king said to the man of God, “That couldn’t happen even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven!”

But Elisha replied, “You will see it happen with your own eyes, but you won’t be able to eat any of it!”

Could you imagine the lack of faith that this official had? He has no clue the real power of God. Honestly, that’s how the people of our world are today, even many Christians. They don’t have a full understanding of the power of God that is available for them! That’s why it’s our job to live in the victory! Now this official will not reap the benefits of Elisha’s prophecy.

3 Now there were four men with leprosy sitting at the entrance of the city gates. “Why should we sit here waiting to die?” they asked each other. 4 “We will starve if we stay here, but with the famine in the city, we will starve if we go back there. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean army. If they let us live, so much the better. But if they kill us, we would have died anyway.”

5 So at twilight they set out for the camp of the Arameans. But when they came to the edge of the camp, no one was there! 6 For the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the clatter of speeding chariots and the galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army approaching. “The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us!” they cried to one another. 7 So they panicked and ran into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else, as they fled for their lives.

8 When the men with leprosy arrived at the edge of the camp, they went into one tent after another, eating and drinking wine; and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and hid it. 9 Finally, they said to each other, “This is not right. This is a day of good news, and we aren’t sharing it with anyone! If we wait until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us. Come on, let’s go back and tell the people at the palace.”

There is historical debate if God made the leper’s steps sound like an army, or if He had done it prior, and the lepers just came across the empty camp. It doesn’t matter either way, because Aram has fled and left their entire camp! I also love how the lepers hide a bunch of loot before they feel guilty about it.

10 So they went back to the city and told the gatekeepers what had happened. “We went out to the Aramean camp,” they said, “and no one was there! The horses and donkeys were tethered and the tents were all in order, but there wasn’t a single person around!” 11 Then the gatekeepers shouted the news to the people in the palace.

12 The king got out of bed in the middle of the night and told his officers, “I know what has happened. The Arameans know we are starving, so they have left their camp and have hidden in the fields. They are expecting us to leave the city, and then they will take us alive and capture the city.”

13 One of his officers replied, “We had better send out scouts to check into this. Let them take five of the remaining horses. If something happens to them, it will be no worse than if they stay here and die with the rest of us.”

14 So two chariots with horses were prepared, and the king sent scouts to see what had happened to the Aramean army. 15 They went all the way to the Jordan River, following a trail of clothing and equipment that the Arameans had thrown away in their mad rush to escape. The scouts returned and told the king about it. 16 Then the people of Samaria rushed out and plundered the Aramean camp. So it was true that six quarts of choice flour were sold that day for one piece of silver, and twelve quarts of barley grain were sold for one piece of silver, just as the Lord had promised.17 The king appointed his officer to control the traffic at the gate, but he was knocked down and trampled to death as the people rushed out.

So everything happened exactly as the man of God had predicted when the king came to his house.18 The man of God had said to the king, “By this time tomorrow in the markets of Samaria, six quarts of choice flour will cost one piece of silver, and twelve quarts of barley grain will cost one piece of silver.”

19 The king’s officer had replied, “That couldn’t happen even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven!” And the man of God had said, “You will see it happen with your own eyes, but you won’t be able to eat any of it!” 20 And so it was, for the people trampled him to death at the gate!

Church, we have story after story and example after example in the Bible of God working in wild, miraculous and mysterious ways to see His will accomplished and His promises fulfilled. We live in a world of people who are outside of a relationship with God, and they are searching desperately for the hope, peace, and love that God offers. Church, God offers those things in a multitude of ways, but one of the main ways that He offers them is through His people! Let’s have the faith that can move mountains and live in the victory that is available to us! I want to not only see the move of God, but I want to experience it!

Elevation worship has a lyric in one of their songs called ‘The water is wild,’ that says this:

“It’s more than a visitation, because we are the house of God.

Stop looking for the evidence and start living in the promises!”

Paul tells us that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit! We can live in unison with the Holy Spirit of the King of Creation! It is possible to experience, in this life, the fullness of God in our lives. And church, the world around us needs Christians full of Jesus instead of being full of ourselves! Let’s be the move of God that we have been praying for! In our homes, in our workplaces, and in our schools! Experience the work of God, don’t just see it!