America In Desperate Need of Awakening
2 Kings 6:24-7:10
2 Kings 6:24–25 (NLT)
Some time later, however, King Ben-hadad of Aram mustered his entire army and besieged Samaria. As a result, there was a great famine in the city. The siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty pieces of silver, and a cup of dove’s dung sold for five pieces of silver.
Amos 8:11 (NIV)
“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.”
1. An Answer for the Hopeless
2 Kings 6:26–30a (NLT)
One day as the king of Israel was walking along the wall of the city, a woman called to him, “Please help me, my lord the king!” He answered, “If the Lord doesn’t help you, what can I do? I have neither food from the threshing floor nor wine from the press to give you.” But then the king asked, “What is the matter?” She replied, “This woman said to me: ‘Come on, let’s eat your son today, then we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we cooked my son and ate him. Then the next day I said to her, ‘Kill your son so we can eat him,’ but she has hidden her son.” When the king heard this, he tore his clothes in despair.
1 Peter 3:15b (NIV)
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.
2. Faith in the Face of Blame and Unbelief
1st Mindset: Blame
2 Kings 6:31–33 (NLT)
“May God strike me and even kill me if I don’t separate Elisha’s head from his shoulders this very day,” the king vowed. Elisha was sitting in his house with the elders of Israel when the king sent a messenger to summon him. But before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “A murderer has sent a man to cut off my head. When he arrives, shut the door and keep him out. We will soon hear his master’s steps following him.” While Elisha was still saying this, the messenger arrived. And the king said, “All this misery is from the Lord! Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”
2 Kings 7:1 (NLT)
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, and twelve quarts of barley grain will cost only one piece of silver.”
2nd Mindset: Unbelief
2 Kings 7:2 (NLT)
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!”
“Those who cannot believe the work to be true, because of the extraordinary degree and the way it is happening, should consider how it was with the unbelieving ruler in Samaria, who said, “Look, if the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could this really happen?” Elisha said to him, “Behold, you will see it with your eyes, but will not eat of it”... I would encourage those who sit back and watch, thinking its more wise to watch and analyze rather than to participate, because they are waiting to see how things turn out – to see if what is happening is making any real difference in the lives of people – to consider, whether this will justify themselves not experiencing and recognizing the powerful presence of God when he wonderfully and graciously comes to us. It is likely that many people who are “waiting”, don’t know what they are waiting for. If they wait to see a work of God without difficulties and stumbling-blocks, it will be like a fool waiting for all the water in a river to run by before they decide to cross. A work of God without stumbling-blocks is never to be expected. “For offenses will inevitably come” There have never been any great demonstrations of God’s power in the world, without many difficulties attending it.”
-Jonathan Edwards, Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God
3. Readiness to Share the Good News
2 Kings 7:3–10a (NLT)
Now there were four men with leprosy siRng at the entrance of the city gates. “Why should we sit here wai9ng to die?” they asked each other. “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.” 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! 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. So they panicked and ran into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else, as they fled for their lives. 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. 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.” So they went back to the city and told the gatekeepers what had happened.
1 Corinthians 1:26–27 (NIV)
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
2 Kings 7:17b–18 (NLT)
So everything happened exactly as the man of God had predicted when the king came to his house. 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.”
