A Difficult Thing

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were traveling from Gilgal.  And Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here, for the Lord has told me to go to Bethel.”  But Elisha replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I will never leave you!”  So they went down together to Bethel.  The group of prophets from Bethel came to Elisha and asked him, “Did you know that the Lord is going to take your master away from you today?”  “Of course I know,” Elisha answered. “But be quiet about it.”  Then Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here, for the Lord has told me to go to Jericho.”  But Elisha replied again, “As surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I will never leave you.”  So they went on together to Jericho.  Then the group of prophets from Jericho came to Elisha and asked him, “Did you know that the Lord is going to take your master away from you today?”  “Of course I know,” Elisha answered.  “But be quiet about it.”  Then Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here, for the Lord has told me to go to the Jordan River.”  But again Elisha replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I will never leave you.”  So they went on together.  Fifty men from the group of prophets also went and watched from a distance as Elijah and Elisha stopped beside the Jordan River.  Then Elijah folded his cloak together and struck the water with it. The river divided, and the two of them went across on dry ground!  When they came to the other side, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I can do for you before I am taken away.”  And Elisha replied, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit and become your successor.”  “You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah replied.  “If you see me when I am taken from you, then you will get your request.  But if not, then you won’t.”  As they were walking along and talking, suddenly a chariot of fire appeared, drawn by horses of fire.  It drove between the two men, separating them, and Elijah was carried by a whirlwind into heaven.  Elisha saw it and cried out, “My father! My father! I see the chariots and charioteers of Israel!”  And as they disappeared from sight, Elisha tore his clothes in distress.  Elisha picked up Elijah’s cloak, which had fallen when he was taken up.  Then Elisha returned to the bank of the Jordan River.  He struck the water with Elijah’s cloak and cried out, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?”  Then the river divided, and Elisha went across.  When the group of prophets from Jericho saw from a distance what happened, they exclaimed, “Elijah’s spirit rests upon Elisha!”  And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him.  2 Kings 2:1-15

Elisha would not be separated from his mentor, Elijah.  That is so like Ruth clinging to Naomi, a fierce determination to faithfully serve what God has given you.  Three times Elijah told his protégé to wait behind; three times Elisha answers with his lifelong commitment to serve God by staying close to the shadow of Elijah.  In the end it was only a chariot on fire with Heaven’s glory that could separate them.

What do we make of this event, and its place in God’s Word to us?  If you’re dissecting the event to make sense of the miracles, or wondering what part the prophets of Bethel and Jericho play, or what kind of material it would take to produce Elijah’s miracle-generating robe…we’re likely placing more weight on the miracles than on the Giver of miracles.  The main sense I see in this whole account of Elijah’s last days is the shift of God’s work that falls on the shoulders of Elisha.  He asked for a double-share of the spirit of his teacher.  Elijah called it a difficult thing.  There are two ways to take that; either it was a tricky thing for Elijah to produce it for Elisha, or a double prophet’s portion would bring a very difficult life to Elisha.  Elijah left it all in God’s hands; if that was God’s will, Elisha would see it.

For You Today 

If you’ve sat at the feet of some Godly teacher(s), you have sensed something of what God wants to do with your life.  Dare you ask for a difficult thing?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library. 

Title Image(s) courtesy of via Wikimedia.org

Images without citation are in public domain.  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

Legacy of Leprosy

[1]

Tuesday, July 9, 2019

“Go in peace,” Elisha said. So Naaman started home again.  But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the man of God, said to himself, “My master should not have let this Aramean get away without accepting any of his gifts.  As surely as the Lord lives, I will chase after him and get something from him.”  So Gehazi set off after Naaman.  When Naaman saw Gehazi running after him, he climbed down from his chariot and went to meet him.  “Is everything all right?” Naaman asked.  “Yes,” Gehazi said, “but my master has sent me to tell you that two young prophets from the hill country of Ephraim have just arrived.  He would like 75 pounds of silver and two sets of clothing to give to them.”  “By all means, take twice as much silver,” Naaman insisted.  He gave him two sets of clothing, tied up the money in two bags, and sent two of his servants to carry the gifts for Gehazi.  But when they arrived at the citadel, Gehazi took the gifts from the servants and sent the men back.  Then he went and hid the gifts inside the house.  When he went in to his master, Elisha asked him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?”  “I haven’t been anywhere,” he replied.  But Elisha asked him, “Don’t you realize that I was there in spirit when Naaman stepped down from his chariot to meet you?  Is this the time to receive money and clothing, olive groves and vineyards, sheep and cattle, and male and female servants?  Because you have done this, you and your descendants will suffer from Naaman’s leprosy forever.”  When Gehazi left the room, he was covered with leprosy; his skin was white as snow.  2 Kings 5:19-27

Naaman, commander of the most powerful army in the world awoke one day to discover he had leprosy.  He would’ve traded all his power and wealth for a good doctor’s report.  When he went to the prophet he got just that…jaundiced, sickly skin, covered in sores and scabs, bordering on rotting, was now smooth and clear.

Naaman was overjoyed and wanted to shower the prophet with gifts of gold, silver, and a lavish wardrobe.  Elisha refused, but Gehazi, his servant couldn’t resist.  He went behind the prophet’s back, running after Naaman, lying straight-faced to him, and managing to snag 150 pounds of silver for himself (worth about $36,000 in today’s money[2]).  Gehazi hid the money, but the prophet knew all about it and the tables turned very quickly. 

The upshot of the story is incredible.  Naaman, a heathen, hardened military political power broker who had every advantage except health was willing to trade it all for relief from leprosy.  He got the relief and became a worshipper of the Lord God.  Gehazi, servant of Elisha, who had seen the prophet’s connection with God as Elisha performed miracles, and who had witnessed the might of JHWH defeating the foes of Israel without so much as a skirmish, traded away his own health, and that of his children and grandchildren, not to mention the possibility of passing along a good name, for some stolen bags of silver, just enough to make a good down payment on a funeral.

The contrast of the two men is striking.  Naaman was sickly and willing to give it all away for the blessing of God.  Gehazi lived in the blessing of God and wanted what Naaman had.  He got way more than he bargained for.

For You Today

Scripture says that contentment with godliness is itself great wealth.[3]  Like Gehazi we always have a choice, we can be content and let our thoughts and lives dwell with God and His ways, or we can trade away our contentment for a little silver or gold…and leave a leprous legacy; should be a no-brainer for believers!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com        Unless otherwise noted, Scripture used from The New Living Translation©

[2] According to Silver Market price

[3] 1 Timothy 6:6

More Than Enough

[1]

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, “My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared the Lord.  But now a creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves.”  “What can I do to help you?” Elisha asked.  “Tell me, what do you have in the house?”  “Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,” she replied.  And Elisha said, “Borrow as many empty jars as you can from your friends and neighbors.  Then go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you.  Pour olive oil from your flask into the jars, setting each one aside when it is filled.”  So she did as she was told.  Her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she filled one after another.  Soon every container was full to the brim!  “Bring me another jar,” she said to one of her sons.  “There aren’t any more!” he told her.  And then the olive oil stopped flowing.  When she told the man of God what had happened, he said to her, “Now sell the olive oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what is left over.”                              2 Kings 4:1-7

Scripture goes into great detail to make the point that faith requires little in the way of wealth, health, or strength as the world sees such.  The widow of one of Elisha’s prophet band had nothing to her name but a flask of olive oil, and the wolves were at the door.  When Elisha delivered the Word of the Lord to her she did what she was told.  Faith in God is always a matter of obedience, even in the face of great odds, or little understanding. 

The widow’s mite, an offering of less than a penny’s value by a woman who had less than poverty to live-on, is often held up as the example of true Christian stewardship.  Heaven’s standard for judging your offering is never a matter of how much you give, but what you have left to keep.  

And while that’s so, faith is not the sole possession of those on the margins.  We must also see that the size of your portfolio never determines if your faith is great, puny, or non-existent; sometimes those who are rich, strong, and well-placed in society are also people of great faith.  Job was rich, but was also a man of intense, durable faith.  In fact, he was among the richest, healthiest, and most respected men of his time.  John Wesley had fortunes pass into and out of his hands in his lifetime.  But, as a true “man of God” those fortunes found ways to bless those less fortunate. 

Jesus warned about the trap riches can be to your spiritual health:

·      the rich young ruler preferred his money rather than eternal life

·      the successful farmer built bigger barns to store his biggest crop ever, rather than sharing with his neighbors

·      The rich man (Dives) ignored Lazarus the beggar right on his doorstep.

But sometimes I believe we must be put in difficult circumstances for us to see how relying on God (faith) is our biggest need.   And that was the entire point of Jesus’ teaching in each of the three stories:

The rich young ruler, successful farmer, and cold-hearted Dives all trusted their wealth to carry them into a comfortable life.  They were wrong; the allure of riches comes with a hook – a hook that sets in your soul and yanks it far from the Heavenly courts above!

For You Today

It’s not wrong to have the blessing of money…God can do great things through people who are generous and also listening for the Spirit’s direction how to use what little or great blessings He’s put in your hand. 

But those people for whom money has become their God, the question they really need to hear is, have you EVER seen a U-Haul trailer hitched to a hearse?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com     Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

Reasonable Faith

[i]

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

The king of Aram had great admiration for Naaman, the commander of his army, because through him the Lord had given Aram great victories.  But though Naaman was a mighty warrior, he suffered from leprosy.  At this time Aramean raiders had invaded the land of Israel, and among their captives was a young girl who had been given to Naaman’s wife as a maid.  One day the girl said to her mistress, “I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria.  He would heal him of his leprosy.”  So Naaman told the king what the young girl from Israel had said.  “Go and visit the prophet,” the king of Aram told him.  “I will send a letter of introduction for you to take to the king of Israel.”  So Naaman started out, carrying as gifts 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, and ten sets of clothing.  The letter to the king of Israel said:  “With this letter I present my servant Naaman.  I want you to heal him of his leprosy.”  When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes in dismay and said, “Am I God, that I can give life and take it away?  Why is this man asking me to heal someone with leprosy?  I can see that he’s just trying to pick a fight with me.”  But when Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes in dismay, he sent this message to him:  “Why are you so upset?  Send Naaman to me, and he will learn that there is a true prophet here in Israel.”  So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and waited at the door of Elisha’s house.  But Elisha sent a messenger out to him with this message:  “Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River.  Then your skin will be restored, and you will be healed of your leprosy.”  But Naaman became angry and stalked away.  “I thought he would certainly come out to meet me!” he said.  “I expected him to wave his hand over the leprosy and call on the name of the Lord his God and heal me!  Aren’t the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar, better than any of the rivers of Israel?  Why shouldn’t I wash in them and be healed?”  So Naaman turned and went away in a rage.  But his officers tried to reason with him and said, “Sir, if the prophet had told you to do something very difficult, wouldn’t you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply, ‘Go and wash and be cured!’”  So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the man of God had instructed him.  And his skin became as healthy as the skin of a young child, and he was healed!  2 Kings 5:1-14(NLT)

Naaman was a powerful warrior who had leprosy, an ancient aids-like diagnosis; no matter your military prowess, this was a sentence of death.  Frantically willing to grasp at any straw of promise, Naaman carried a huge gift to the King of Israel to persuade him to pressure the prophet into healing his leprosy.  One estimate of the silver, gold and designer clothes approaches $1 million.[ii]  Healthcare has never been cheap, but that’s another story.

Naaman got healed despite himself.  If you survey the Scriptures, you’ll find that God always humbles the proud and exalts the humble.  If paying a million bucks to fend off the grim reaper wasn’t a sure thing, there was also the veiled threat that if Naaman didn’t get his request, the King of Aram, who had already defeated Israel in battle, would not be happy.  Naaman missed it entirely that you cannot buy God with gold, nor intimidate Him with your power.  I can imagine a little laugh echoing in heaven’s halls as God watches the mortal military genius flexing his leprosy-covered muscles.

Well the story displays a typical attitude of the privileged and powerful, supposing even the prophet of God would come bowing, scraping, and ready to cater to Naaman’s every wish.  It didn’t happen that way; Elisha sent his servant to the door and told the General to go take a bath in the muddy Jordan.  Dip seven times like a bobbing fish lure and see what happens.  This didn’t please Naaman at all, but his servants brought a little reason to the table, and convinced the dying, but proud man to do as the prophet had ordered.

In the end, Naaman learned a little humility can be a powerful friend; he also learned faith is not only the evidence of things not seen[iii], it is also the very substance of reason, which is doing things in God’s world the way God the Creator designed it. 

For You Today

Like Naaman, we all eventually come face to face with the truth that doing things God’s way is the only way…if you want to live! 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:  via Wikimedia Commons

[ii] Jack Wald, Rabat International Church, in a sermon

[iii] Hebrews 11:1

Miracles!

[i]

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

One day the group of prophets came to Elisha and told him, “As you can see, this place where we meet with you is too small.  Let’s go down to the Jordan River, where there are plenty of logs.  There we can build a new place for us to meet.” 

“All right,” he told them, “go ahead.”  “Please come with us,” someone suggested.  “I will,” he said.  So he went with them.  When they arrived at the Jordan, they began cutting down trees.  But as one of them was cutting a tree, his ax head fell into the river.  “Oh, sir!” he cried.  “It was a borrowed ax!”

“Where did it fall?” the man of God asked.  When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it into the water at that spot. Then the ax head floated to the surface.  “Grab it,” Elisha said.  And the man reached out and grabbed it.   2 Kings 6:1-7^(NLT)

“What sorrow awaits you, Korazin and Bethsaida!  For if the miracles I did in you had been done in wicked Tyre and Sidon, their people would have repented of their sins long ago, clothing themselves in burlap and throwing ashes on their heads to show their remorse.  Yes, Tyre and Sidon will be better off on judgment day than you.  And you people of Capernaum, will you be honored in heaven?  No, you will go down to the place of the dead.”  Then he said to the disciples, “Anyone who accepts your message is also accepting me.  And anyone who rejects you is rejecting me.  And anyone who rejects me is rejecting God, who sent me.” Luke 10:13-16^(NLT)

The prophets were known for miracles; rain ceased, fire was called-down from the heavens, dead children lived again, and an axe-head floated!  

Eleven-hundred years later Jesus shook his head and couldn’t believe the unbelief of people of the nation of Israel.  They had seen his miracles and called it devil-work.

And herein is the rub for human beings and our spiritual blindness; we fail to see.  And even when a miracle is too profoundly real to deny what happens, we misunderstand, and give credit to the devil…or worse – we give credit to a man.

We humans have always been fascinated with the workings of the magic men.  David Copperfield is one who has mesmerized people with his illusions of impossibilities.  But he is an “illusionist” – someone who appears to command the impossible to happen.  It is a show, a trick for the mind.

It was different with the prophets, and with Jesus.  Real, borrowed axe heads do not float.  And real, dead bodies do not come out of tombs.  Unexplainable faith stuff!

But I’m not presenting a defense of miracles; this is about the reason for miracles.  Elisha didn’t float an iron axe head to please the crowd; he did it to restore borrowed property to its owner, and to restore the faith and courage of his student.

Jesus didn’t heal the sick, change water into wine, and come back from the tomb so we could debate miracles and the underlying psychological reasons why we believe them.  He rose from the dead so we would understand that death has been defeated.

In short, the miracles aren’t about miracles.  When God does a miracle, He suspends the natural laws of His creation to get our attention focused on Him.  But, as Jesus warned Korazin and Bethsaida, taking your eyes off the truth behind the miracle doesn’t make you smart or sophisticated; it gets you darkness and sorrow.

For You Today

Child of God – with the gift of life you are living, you live, move and have being in the greatest of miracles.  When you placed your faith in Jesus’ miracle of resurrection, it was His grace-gift to place eternal life in your soul.

And it isn’t a David Copperfield illusion; it’s an eternal reality!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today…have a blessed day!

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NOTES

[i] Title Image: By b.gliwa (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons