The Choices We Make

Make a Choice

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1. The choices we make verses 3-4

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2. God had gone before them to clear the way verses 5-7

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3. We must share the good news with everyone verses 9

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Choices, we make them every day, don’t we? What to eat, what to watch on TV, what to wear… well, some of us must make that choice. Me, I wear the same thing every day, a white shirt, black pants, black tie, black socks, black shoes, not much on the creative side if you ask me. Anyway, how important are the choices we make? How do they impact your day? Have you ever made a bad decision that impacted your entire day? There are so many examples throughout the bible of people making bad choices, you don’t have to look any further than ‌Genesis 3:6

‌“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” or how about, Jonah 1:1-3

‌“The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.” or one of the most famous choices found in

‌2 Samuel 11:2-4

‌“One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” I think we all know the rest of this story.

‌This morning we are going to look at a choice that was made by 4 men in 2nd Kings chapter 7. Before we dive into God’s word this morning, let’s pray.

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(Prayer)

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(1. The Choices We Make)

‌Let’s look at what is happening during this time, earlier in chapter 6 we find out that a great famine has struck Samaria.

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Samaria was both a region and a city that experienced many changes throughout biblical history. In Hebrew, the name Samariameans “watch-mountain” or “watch-tower,” which matches its hilly features. The place is referred to as “the hill of Samaria” in 1 Kings 16:24. The city of Samaria was in central Israel, about 30 miles north of Jerusalem. Samaria’s hilly geography matches the ups and downs of its history. As the Israelites were dividing the Promised Land, the region of Samaria was given to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. King Omri, the sixth king of the northern kingdom of Israel, bought a hill in the Valley of Shechem in the region of Samaria and built the city of Samaria, which became his capital city (1 Kings 16:23–24). Eventually, the name of the capital was applied to the entire northern kingdom.

‌The Jews of Jesus’ day disliked the Samaritans because of their mixed racial heritage. The temple in Samaria located on Mount Gerizim was destroyed in 129 BC by the Jews, adding to the hostility between the two groups. There are two very familiar passages that talk about the hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans. You will remember in John 4‌

Jesus is traveling and must travel through Samaria. Here we get a glimpse of Jesus as a man. He is tired of all the walking, I’m sure it was a hot day and so he stops at Jacob's Well. As he is sitting there, a Samaritan woman comes to fill her jar. Jesus says to her, “Will you give me a drink?” The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) their conversation goes from the cultural differences to drawing a cup of water to drink, to her marital status to the issue of Worship and Jesus as the Messiah. Following their conversation, she left and told people about Jesus, and they believed.

‌The other famous story about Samaritans takes place in Luke Chapter 10starting with verse 25. This is the story of the Good Samaritan. I don’t think I need to retell this story; I think you all know it, but it’s also a story about choices. The Levite and the Priest made their choice when they saw the traveler beaten and near death, but the Samaritan made a different choice, he chose to help someone that was his enemy.

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So, let’s take a look at our passage again this morning and the choices that were made. 2 Kings 7: 3-10

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“Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So, let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.” At dusk, they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, not a man was there, for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!” So, they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives. The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold, and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also. They said to each other, “What we’re doing is not right. This is a day of good news, and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”

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So, it was customary for those that were inflicted with Leprosy to remain outside of the gates so the citizens inside would not come in contact with those that were "unclean". They knew that they were going to die, remember, leprosy was something that did not have a cure in those days. If you had it, you would die from it. They looked at their situation as a no-win situation, if they went inside the gate, they would die as there was a severe famine in the land, if they stayed outside the gate, they would die because they had leprosy, an incurable sickness. The last option let's go to our enemy’s camp, one of two things will happen, if they spare us, we live for a little while longer, if they kill us, we die. They had a 1 in 3 chance to live (well if you can call living with leprosy living). More than likely, they were going to die. Personally, I don't like those odds, but you must give them credit, they went to the camp of their enemy.

‌Verse 4 in the message translation really makes their thought process clear, it says, “if we enter the famine-struck city we’ll die; if we stay here, we’ll die. So, let’s take our chances in the camp of Aram and throw ourselves at their mercy. If they receive us, we’ll live, if they kill us we’ll die. We’ve got nothing to lose”. What's interesting is that when they finally did decide to go to their enemy’s camp, it wasn't until the sun went down. I guess they thought they might want to sneak in and get a feel for what was happening before they revealed themselves to their enemy. But low and behold, when they got to the camp, no one was there!

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(2. God had gone before them to clear the way)

‌So where was everyone? Why wasn’t anyone there? The answer is simple. God had provided. You have to picture this scene, our four friends are slowly making their way down to the enemies camp expecting to find soldiers and armed to the teeth ready for war. But what happens when they get to the camp? They find that God has prepared the way for them. Now put yourself in the sandals of the soldiers of the camp. You are part of one of the mightiest forces at the time, you are an Aramean soldier. Your strong, your mighty, no one is going to mess with you. BUT… as you are sitting by the fireside, drinking your coffee and having a feast, you hear a noise.

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Now I don’t know about you but I’ve been out in the forest by myself before enjoying the peace and quiet all to myself when all of sudden, a twig snapped, then another and another, I was scared to death.

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What did I do? Well, the first thing I did was cover my head with my sleeping bag, like that was going to ward off whatever was coming my way. I stayed there with my head covered for about 5 seconds, long enough for me to hear another twig snap and that was it. Off came the sleeping bag, and I was off like a track star. Running as fast as I could without a thought of looking behind me (only because I knew that whatever broke those twigs was probably right behind me.)

‌Back to our soldiers, there they were sitting by the fire and scripture says that “The Lord caused them to hear a noise”, some translations even say that “they heard a GREAT noise” from the North and South. Their first thought was that the armies of the Hittites and the Egyptians were coming down on them. Now I don’t know about you, but if I heard my enemies coming from the North and South, my instinct would be to head East or West, and that’s just what they did, they headed East back to their homelands. Have you ever left the house in such a hurry that you forgot something? I have, I’ve left my wallet at home, my phone, my glasses all because I was in a hurry to leave. Our soldiers were in such a hurry to leave that they left most of their animals and supplies behind just to get out of there faster.

‌When our 4 leper friends get to the camp, they discover that it is completely empty. The only thing left is some horses and supplies. Here we see that God has once again provided for the lepers. Even with a famine in the land, God has supplied the needs of our leper friends and provided them with food to sustain them.

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As they are filling their stomachs with as much food as they can, something important happens.

‌2 Kings 7:9

9 Then they said to each other, “We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news, and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”

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3. (We must share the good news with everyone) Verse 9

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Have you ever had something that was so exciting you couldn’t wait to share it? I can imagine that was how these lepers felt. You see, they had two options, they could stay there, eat as much as they could, take the rest and hide it away for a later day, (which they did by the way) OR, they could go and tell those in the city that it was safe to come out and that the enemy has left and in doing so, left horses and supplies that would help to sustain the city until the famine was over. They knew that if they waited to tell the good news that they would more than likely be punished for waiting so long. They knew that this news would be welcomed and that they would be treated with a “Hero’s welcome” so to speak. When they returned with this news, it spread through the city like wildfire. Not only had supplies been found, but food as well. I’m sure that the city was in a frenzy over this news. The king sent out a few soldiers to ensure that this was not some sort of trap set by the enemy and when they returned, they had news, not just news, but great news - The Enemy was gone, and God had indeed provided for the needs of the city.

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(Conclusion)

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I want to leave you this morning with one more example of someone that made a choice, it’s found in the book of Luke 23:39-43

“One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

‌This man understood that Jesus was whom he said he was, he made a choice that day that changed his eternal life forever. Jesus told him as they hung there on the cross together, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

‌So, I say to you today, are you like those in the city that are just sitting there waiting to die of starvation? Or are you like the Aramean army, you are running from God? Or perhaps you are like our 4 friends in this story. They knew that they were going to die, however, they took a chance and as a result, they were able to see God’s providence, and tell others about it. He not only provided for the 4 of them, but he also provided for the entire city. Our friends knew the importance of what had happened, and that God had prepared the way for them, they knew that they had to share the “Good News”. We must do the same, we have Great News to share today, God loves and forgives us no matter what we have done. Wouldn’t you love to share that news with someone you know today? Wouldn’t you love to share with them what Jesus did for them on the cross and how much he loves them? Let me ask you, what’s stopping you? What is keeping you from sharing the good news of God’s love with everyone you come in contact with? I would encourage you this week to look for the opportunities that God puts in your path to share His love with those you talk to, then share it.

‌Let’s Pray.