Can't Help But Speak (2 Kings 6:24-7:9)
C. Jason Walker
Summer Series 2017 • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction:
Introduction:
9 Then they said one to another, We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king’s household.
Illustration:
All successful football teams have a 12th player—the crowd. The volume and enthusiasm of the home-field audience can make the difference between a win and a loss. In the frenzy of a game, it’s hard to sit still and keep quiet. The same is true whenever we have good news. We can’t hold it in. We want to share. In Scripture, we see the same principle at work about sharing spiritual truth.
1. Good News Is for Sharing (2 Kings 6:24–7:9).
1. Good News Is for Sharing (2 Kings 6:24–7:9).
24 And it came to pass after this, that Ben-hadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria. 25 And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver. 26 And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king. 27 And he said, If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress? 28 And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. 29 So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son. 30 And it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes; and he passed by upon the wall, and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh. 31 Then he said, God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day. 32 But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him; and the king sent a man from before him: but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See ye how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head? look, when the messenger cometh, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door: is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him? 33 And while he yet talked with them, behold, the messenger came down unto him: and he said, Behold, this evil is of the Lord; what should I wait for the Lord any longer? 1 Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord, To morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria. 2 Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. 3 And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? 4 If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die. 5 And they rose up in the twilight, to go unto the camp of the Syrians: and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. 6 For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. 7 Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. 8 And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went and hid it; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went and hid it. 9 Then they said one to another, We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king’s household.
The city of Samaria was under siege; within was famine and starvation.
Outside the walls were four lepers who decided to defect to the enemy in hopes of staying alive.
Approaching the opposing camp, they found it deserted and began helping themselves to food and provisions.
Suddenly, coming to their senses, they said, “We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace...”.
It isn’t right when we discover the wonderful news of Christ, but don’t pass it on.
2. Bottles 'bout to Burst (Job 32:15–21).
2. Bottles 'bout to Burst (Job 32:15–21).
15 They were amazed, they answered no more: They left off speaking. 16 When I had waited, (for they spake not, But stood still, and answered no more;) 17 I said, I will answer also my part, I also will shew mine opinion. 18 For I am full of matter, The spirit within me constraineth me. 19 Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent; It is ready to burst like new bottles. 20 I will speak, that I may be refreshed: I will open my lips and answer. 21 Let me not, I pray you, accept any man’s person, Neither let me give flattering titles unto man.
Young Elihu described himself as “full of matter... .the spirit within me constraineth me. Behold, my belly is as a wine which hath no vent; It is ready to burst like new bottles. I will speak, that I may be refreshed..”.
How descriptive of Christians who are filled with the Spirit.
3. A Gospel Geyser (Ps. 39:1–3).
3. A Gospel Geyser (Ps. 39:1–3).
1 I said, I will take heed to my ways, That I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, While the wicked is before me. 2 I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good; And my sorrow was stirred. 3 My heart was hot within me, While I was musing the fire burned: Then spake I with my tongue,
David decides to keep his mouth shut, but, “My heart was hot within me; while I was musing, the fire burned.”
We need a fire in our belly, spilling over into the lava of a loving witness.
4. A Fire in the Bones (Jer. 20:1–9).
4. A Fire in the Bones (Jer. 20:1–9).
1 Now Pashur the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things. 2 Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the Lord. 3 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The Lord hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magor-missabib. 4 For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it: and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive into Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword. 5 Moreover I will deliver all the strength of this city, and all the labours thereof, and all the precious things thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, which shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon. 6 And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity: and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies. 7 O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, Every one mocketh me. 8 For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; Because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, And a derision, daily. 9 Then I said, I will not make mention of him, Nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, And I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.
Jeremiah had been beaten and humiliated in the stocks for his preaching. In reaction, he tells the Lord he is quitting the ministry.
But the fire in his bones would not be quenched.
Vance Havner said that Jeremiah did not merely have something to say; he had to say something.
In one of his messages, Havner asked why we don’t have a similar “bone fire.”
Turning to Acts 19:19, he read about the Ephesians who, coming to Christ, burned their sinful paraphernalia in a bonfire.
Havner suggested we can’t have bone fire until we have a bonfire.
Hearts Afire
But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing and I could not stay. - Jeremiah 20:9.
Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way and while he opened to us the scriptures? - Luke 24:32.
Those of us who are tempted to get under the juniper because of the condition of the church might do well to ponder the spiritual state of England two hundred years ago. It was a dark hour. As someone has put it, "The Puritans had been buried and the Methodists were not yet born." In one section only one Bible could be found and that was used to prop up a flower-pot. It was publicly advertised in front of drinking places that one could get drunk for one penny and dead drunk for two. France had gone into infidelity and England would have followed had not a young preacher on May 24, 1738, attended a meeting on Aldersgate Street and felt his own heart strangely warmed.
The course of a nation was changed because one preacher had a heartwarming. John Wesley did more to make England over than all the experts and reformers. This old world is in a sad way now, and lately it has almost been wrecked by hotheads. The only hope, as in Wesley's day, is a spiritual revival, and that calls, not for hot heads, of which we have a plenty even in the church, but for hot hearts.
You recognize the texts. In the first, Jeremiah is ready to quit preaching. He is like that preacher who wanted to resign but who was impressed within that what he needed was not to resign but to have his commission re-signed. He tried to quit but couldn't. He developed a bone-fire. Here was a prophet with a holy fever, a preacher running a spiritual temperature, a man of God with a burning heart.
The other text brings us to the Emmaus disciples after those exciting crucifixion days in Jerusalem. They were trudging along a country road, half-believing, half-doubting, suffering a let-down both in body and spirit, when the Lord caught up with them. They were right in their facts: "This is the third day." But they were wrong in their conclusions, for, since it was the third day, they should have been expecting to see the risen Christ around any bend of the road. They were right in their chronology and in their theology, but they had no doxology. And even when the Lord did appear, their eyes were holden, He was a veiled Christ. But when He expounded the Scriptures they developed a holy heartburn, which led to an experience that stirred their hearts and turned them into radiant witnesses.
Their plight before their hearts were warmed is typical of thousands of orthodox Christians today. At the bottom of all our troubles lies unreality in our Christian experience. We are walking with a veiled Christ. We need a holy heartburn.
A. J. Gordon once classified some obstreperous church members as "figureheads, soreheads and deadheads." He might have added "hotheads," of which there is always an abundance. But a man may have a hot head and a cold heart. Christmas Evans, just out of a theological controversy, was convicted of a cold heart as he rode along through the mountains one Saturday afternoon, traveling on horseback to preach next day. Great preacher that he was, he needed a heartwarming and got it after hours in prayer.
Alexander Whyte was wont to watch the radiant throngs that emerged from Mr. Moody's great meetings in those Pentecostal days during the mission to the British Isles. Their hearts had been warmed by the ministry of the Spirit. Mr. Moody went to Scotland some years after the Disruption and found the churches cold and divided. But he did not go to Scotland as an expert; he went as an evangelist, exulting in the grace of God. A witness said, "It seemed as though someone had set to music a tune that had been haunting thousands of ears." He warmed their hearts.
One thinks of the professor who wrote a very learned book on love. The only defect was, the professor had never been in love. When he took the manuscript to a typist to have it prepared for the publisher, the typist turned out to be a very lovely lady, and when their eyes met something happened to the professor that was not in the book. He was happier in five minutes with love in his heart than he had been in thirty years with love in his head.
Something like that needs to happen to a lot of fundamentalists. Some of our churches are frozen together when they should be melted together. We have plenty of orthodoxy, plenty of teaching, plenty of activity; there is an abundance of good things, and in the midst of it all we are like a cat drowning in cream. There is plenty of discussion of revivals, causes of revival, hindrances to revival, ways and means of revival: the only thing lacking is revival. We agree that it is the work of the Spirit, but here again we spend our time arguing over the expressions and missing the experience. Baptism, filling, enduement, victorious life, perfect love, full surrender—we are like a crowd of beggars discussing the merits of different kinds of pocketbooks and all of them "broke"!
We are afraid of extremism, until we are guilty of the worst extremism of all, the extremism of impotence. Some of us are so afraid that we shall "get out on a limb" that we never get up the tree! Whatever you choose to call it, we need a heartwarming, a heavenly bone-fire, a holy heartburn. Our heads and hands have outrun our hearts. We have forgotten that the way forward is not head first but heart first. We have been wagging our heads and working our hands instead of warming our hearts.
To be "fervent in spirit" is to be "boiling in spirit," and to boil we must be near the Fire. How shall we obtain the burning heart? Jeremiah said it was God's Word that did it and it was Jesus expounding the Scriptures that did it and it was while listening to Luther's exposition of Romans that Wesley's heart was warmed. There is, indeed, the strange fire that Nadab and Abihu offered instead of supernatural fire from above. There is the false fire of Isaiah 50:11: "Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow." There is the Divine Fire which is the gift of God, and this fire Paul urged Timothy to stir up within him. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit, but the fire often dies down, and he must needs wait on God through the Word and prayer and rekindle the flame until the love of God is shed afresh in his heart, for, like Ephesus of old, we leave our first love, and because iniquity abounds our love grows cold. It takes time to do that, not because God is reluctant but because we are rebellious. It takes effort, for we must apply the means of grace. But if instead of trying to work up carnal enthusiasm and whip up our poor jaded nerves with religious excitement, we took time out to really get ourselves a burning heart we would accomplish more in a day than we get done in a year without it.
Much of our Christianity today is like the feast at Cana when it ran out of wine. We have a feast of good things: there is plenty of teaching and preaching; churches and conferences spread tables loaded with superabundance. But we have no wine. The exhilaration of the Spirit is lacking. The spiritual wine that makes glad the heart of man is gone. We need a heartwarming!
John the Baptist was not to drink wine, but he was to be filled with the Spirit. On the day of Pentecost the church was accused of being drunk on new wine, when it was really Spirit-filled. We are not to be drunk with wine but filled with the Spirit. There is a parallel between the two. Campbell Morgan asks: "Has anyone ever charged you with being drunk with your Christianity? O God, how seldom men have thought us drunk!"
Art, literature, statesmanship, scientific discoveries are the work of drunk men. We see the principle perverted in the drunkard and the dope fiend or in a Hitler. We see the constructive side in a Beethoven, an Edison, a Lincoln. Even as children we are "drunk on the wine of youth." A little later we get drunk on love. What man does not remember some summer night when he was so in love that he loved the moon and stars and everybody except that rival who was running him a close race for the heart of his beloved? Why do we Christians not so love Jesus until we love everybody except the arch enemy of our souls?
Now, just as the natural man has his stimulants, good and bad, so has the Christian. We have meat to eat and also wine to drink that the world knows not of. Our wine is the Spirit, and yet most of us are not drunk Christians. We need our hearts warmed. When George Fox was going through his spiritual crisis, he was advised to drink beer. His advisers sensed a need but could not supply the remedy. Later he got drunk on the wine of heaven and warmed up many another soul thereafter.
Our world is drunk. Some Christians are drunk on false wine, having fired themselves with the energy of the flesh. It will take the true wine of the Spirit to move this world. God has provided a heart-warmer for His people: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." And, unlike the wines of earth, there is no hangover: "The blessing of the Lord it maketh rich and he addeth no sorrow with it." There is no dark-brown, morning-after taste to the joy of the Lord!
We have run out of wine. But there was one at Cana who could meet the emergency. "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." He can meet our need. If we take Him at His word and fill the waterpots with water, He will work His miracle, and those to whom we minister will say that the last wine is better than the first!
We shall never warm our hearts until we gather around the Lord. Only a Person, Christ Himself, unites us. There are conservative Christians who wouldn't be caught on the same platform. All our plans for getting them together move so slowly because they won't jell! The only place where we can get together is where we are already together, in Him.
We need a holy heartburn. Our eyes are holden. We need a fresh experience of the reality of Jesus Christ.
Lord Jesus, make Thyself to me
A living, bright Reality;
More pleasant to faith's vision keen
Than any outward object seen,
More dear, more intimately nigh,
Than e'en the sweetest earthly tie.
We need to forget which group we belong to, which movement we are sponsoring, which button we are wearing, which Paul or Apollos or Cephas we are lined up with, long enough to ask, "Is Jesus real to me?" Is He real to you? Is your heart warm? He told us the secret: "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him" (John 14:21). How was He made real to these Emmaus disciples? When He overtook them, they had burdened hearts; then they had burning hearts, and when they recognized Him they had believing hearts. Well, they invited Him in as their guest, and He became their host. He was always doing that. At Cana He was first the guest, and, when the wine gave out, He became the host. Again He says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him"—I'll be his guest—and he with me—He'll be my guest." The Emmaus disciples took Him in and then the guest became host and made Himself known and sent them out to witness to others.
Has He taken over in your heart? Perhaps He resides there, but does He preside? Or maybe you have never opened the door. Prebendary Webb-Peploe used to say, "Sometimes I buy a present for my wife. I am afraid that my selections are often very poor, but she always accepts them graciously, because she knows that before I ever gave her these presents I gave her my heart." Now, all the roses and jewels there are can never make a wife happy if she knows her husband has not first given her his heart. Nor can all our gifts and religious observances please our Lord until first we give Him ourselves.
Let Him take over, and He will give you a heavenly bone-fire and holy heartburn, and will rekindle your heart with fire from above.
May Thy rich grace impart
Strength to my fainting heart,
My zeal inspire;
As Thou hast died for me,
O may my love to Thee
Pure, warm and changeless be,
A living fire!
From "My Faith Looks Up To Thee," by Ray Palmer.
[Vance Havner, Hearts Afire, Vance Havner Bundle (Baker Publishing Group, 1952).]
5. Can’t Help But Speak (Acts 4:18–20).
5. Can’t Help But Speak (Acts 4:18–20).
18 And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. 20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.
The apostles had “bone fire,” telling the Sanhedren they could not stop telling what they had seen and heard.
Once, when Indian evangelist Sundar Singh was in the forbidden land of Nepal preaching the gospel, he was arrested and thrown into prison. He preached to the other prisoners with great effect. When the jailer ordered silence, Sundar replied, “I must obey my Master and preach His gospel regardless of threats or sufferings.” The authorities put him in solitary confinement in a foul-smelling cattle shed. They tied his hands and feet to a post, and removed his clothing. They threw leeches on him, which fastened to his body and sucked his blood. Sundar simply raised his voice to heaven in prayer and song. Concluding him mad, the jailers released him, and he went on his way—preaching.
6. Woe Is Me if I Preach Not the Gospel (1 Cor. 9:16).
6. Woe Is Me if I Preach Not the Gospel (1 Cor. 9:16).
16 For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!
Paul’s words were echoed centuries later when John Hus told the archbishop of Prague, “Shall I keep silent? God forbid! Woe is me, if I keep silent. It is better for me to die than not to oppose such wickedness, which would make me a participant in their guilt and hell.”
7. Constrained By Love (2 Cor. 5:14).
7. Constrained By Love (2 Cor. 5:14).
14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:
The love of Christ constrained Paul to share Christ.
John Geddie, pioneer Canadian missionary to the New Hebrides Islands, was shocked by the butchery, brutality, and sensual evil of those he came to win. But he wrote in his diary, “The love of Christ sustains us and constrains us. My heart pants to tell this miserable people the wonders of redeeming love.”
John Wesley wrote: “The love of Christ doth me constrain / To seek the wandering souls of men, / With cries, entreaties, tears, to save, / To snatch them from the gaping grave.”
George Whitefield simply said, “I’ll preach Christ till I do to pieces fall.”
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
Vance Havner lamented that many of us are like arctic rivers—frozen at the mouth.
The Lost Voice -
We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard (Acts 4:20).
Christianity is a faith that talks. It is vocal and articulate.
1. We should repent with words (Hos. 14:2).
2 Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: Say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: So will we render the calves of our lips.
2. Believe with words (Rom. 10:9, 10).
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
3. Praise with words (Heb. 13:15).
15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
4. Testify with words (Ps. 107:2).
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, Whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy;
Here are [some] voice lessons we sadly need to learn today, for so much of the church has lost its voice. We are like Arctic rivers, frozen at the mouth. It is a day of good tidings and we hold our peace. [Truth, p. 17] [Dennis J. Hester, Vance Havner Sermon Sparklers, Outlines and Quotes, Vance Havner Bundle (WORDsearch, 2006).]
Ask the Lord for a thaw, for a fire in your bones, for a Spirit-compulsion to share Christ.
May He kindle afresh the fire within until we can’t hold it in any longer.
[Sermon Adapted from - Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Annual Preacher’s Sourcebook, 2002 Edition. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001), 240–241.]