When the Axe Falls, 2 Kings 6:1-7

When the Axe Falls

When the Axe Falls

2 Kings 6:1-7

This morning, we return to our study in 2 Kings, after taking a break last week. We pick up our journey in chapter 6. Our text for this morning is 2 Kings 6:1-7. It’s a miracle story, it’s a strange miracle story. In fact, it is one of the strangest miracle stories in all of the Bible.

READ vv. 1-7

Okay, be honest now. How many of us read this story and wonder, “What in the world is THIS story doing in the Bible?!” Be honest. I mean - think about it: God’s Written revelation consists of 66 books, covering the things He considers essential for us to know - from Creation, to Incarnation to Crucifixion and Resurrection to Salvation to the great Goal and Consummation for all of history.

You’re telling me that out of the things that God considers so important that He made sure to have them captured in His the limited space of His everlasting Word … No room for Him to explain the theory of relativity in here, that’s not important enough. No room for Him to explain penicillin … or WHY He created mosquitoes .... So many big things that God’s written word doesn’t address. And you’re telling me that a story about a floating axe head makes the list of one of those critically important messages from God?!

Well that’s exactly what God is telling us. So the question that’s left for us to answer then, is: “Okay WHAT does God want us to learn from this story? Obviously, it’s here for my benefit - so how do I apply this story about an axe, to my life today? I never even use an axe.”

And Bible-believing men and women of faith - wanting to be good disciples and find something from this story to apply to their own lives …people who want to be growing disciples of Jesus Christ, when they read this text, the first thing that often comes to mind is, “What behaviour should I copy here? What should I avoid?”

There are a couple of common approaches people take to get to the application. Some people MORALIZE the text: they find some lesson to be put into practice today – turn it into a kind of Biblical ‘Aesop’s Fable’ … And all kinds of people come up with all kinds of morals to this story.

Some remember that Proverbs 22:7 says: “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.” Ahh - the lesson is, ‘Don’t borrow somebody else’s tools’. Or the flip side - ‘Don’t loan anyone your tools, they always seem to do something careless and the next thing you know - you don’t get your stuff back – or you get it back wrecked.’

Other’s say, ‘When you are on a building project - make sure that you get competent help. If you use volunteers, you often get exactly what you paid for.’ One person I read about came to the conclusion that the lesson of this passage is, ‘Don’t build on waterfront property’. But was this text intended to be a moralistic story? Sure there can be lessons learned from Bible passages like this - but God’s Word is intended to be so much more than an inspired Aesop’s Fables.

Other people come to the text and try to ALLEGORIZEit, like an inspired Pilgrim’s Progress - where the features of this story actually stand for something else - something more ‘spiritual’.

So the axe head stands for a person’s soul, the Jordan river is the place of judgment. When we are born into this world, we find the axe head of our souls, which were given to us by God - we find them buried under the Jordan - the waters of judgment. The stick in v. 6 is wood - the cross is made of wood - so when the cross of Jesus Christ touches the water of judgment, then our souls can float to the surface and live. You can do all sorts of things with allegory and you can go down some pretty fanciful pathways and get yourself into all kinds of trouble. No, the axe-head is a real piece of iron here and the stick is a real tree-limb and the river here is really the Jordan … it’s got water in it.

A little lesson on Biblical interpretation. When we read the Bible, of course we want to learn how to live … but let me encourage you - the Bible is more fundamentally a revelation about God. In other words: the very FIRST priority of God’s Word is to make GOD KNOWN. So, when you come to the Bible and want to understand what it has to say to you, the FIRST question you should ask is NOT, “What’s in here for me?”, but “What do I learn about God from this passage?”

What does 2 Kings 6:1-7 teach us about God? That’s the question we need to focus on this morning. So let’s look at the text. We’ll unpack the story and then we’re going to bring it home and see what it has to say to us today.

1 THE CHALLENGE, vv. 1-3

The story actually begins with some good news, for a change. Verse 1: “Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, ‘See the place where we dwell under your charge is too small for us.” This is a positive development. It wasn’t that long ago, when Elijah was in deep despair, thinking that he was the ONLY believer left in the whole country. That was a time when the last prophets in Israel were being hunted down, hiding in caves and living on bread and water. Here we are, just a few years later and the church is growing. In fact, so many young men, wanting to train as spiritual leaders - as prophets –so many are flocking to this seminary where Elisha is doing the teaching - that the place is busting at the seams. There’s no room left in the dorms.

“We need to start a quick building program and construct a larger school”. Now the situation at this seminary doesn’t mean that there’s a revival going on in Israel. The nation is not getting closer to God as a whole. The king is just as rebellious, just as idolatrous and he’s leading the nation just as far from true religion as the kings of Israel always did. BUT - what our text is telling us is that, even when the greater society seems to be on a one way highway to destruction .... Even then - God is still at work, building His people. Do you see the implications of that for us in our day? God hasn’t finished His work. If you want to discover what God is or isn’t doing in the world - Don’t look ‘out there’ ... look at what He’s doing in here. In this church that He bought at the cost of His eternal Son’s blood.

The plan for the building project is to head out of town (likely Gilgal) to the trees growing on the banks of the Jordan river. Everyone will grab a log and then together - they will construct the new seminary that will be big enough to meet the needs of the growing student body. Now, Elisha isn’t responsible for the building plan, but he gives it his blessing. At the end of verse 2, one simple word: “Go”. In other words, “Go with my full support and encouragement.”

One of the student-servants says, “We want you to come along, too.” Verse 3, “Be pleased to go with your servants.” Well, Elisha used to work on a farm, but by this point in his life, that kind of manual labour is a little speck in the rear-view mirror. He’s a scholar and preacher, now. But he doesn’t object to the request; he doesn’t put up a fight. The end of verse 3 he answers, “I will go.”

2 THE CRISIS, vv. 4-5

The construction crew gets to the river and the scene quickly starts to resemble an Amish barn raising - everyone pitching in, working with their hands, cutting down trees and getting ready to work together to raise the new school. The sun is shining, these folks who usually spend so much time studying are now filling their lungs with fresh air and their spirits are filled with anticipation of an exciting new chapter in raising the ....

Things seem almost too good to be true. Sure enough - things ARE too good to be true.

Verse 5, “But as one was felling a log, his axe head fell into the water, and he cried out, ‘Alas, my master! It was borrowed.’” So, one of the men takes a swing with his axe, just as he has been doing all day - but this time, as he brings the axe forward to slice into the tree … the iron head separates from the wooden handle and everything instantly switches to that frustrating slow-motion experience that so often happens when you realize that something bad is about to happen, but you are utterly helpless to do anything about it – except watch. The iron head projectiles through the air like a missile and .... splash! Into the river it lands. And, of course, to the river bottom this heavy piece of iron immediately sinks.

This loss of the axe head creates two problems: FIRST of all, when you are chopping trees to build a house and you have nothing to use to actually chop the trees and get them horizontal .... the job suddenly becomes a whole lot more difficult.

The SECONDproblem is that THIS axe head didn’t even belong to the servant doing the chopping. That’s why he cries out, at the end of v. 5, “Alas master! It was borrowed!”

Now, for most of us today, we can identify …. To a point. This is a problem. It’s a frustrating problem - it’s one of those Murphy’s law problems that always seems to inevitably hit you right when you’re up to your neck in a project. You can’t find the right sized socket to get the bolt off … the staple gun runs out of staples. There’s always something that makes the job take so much longer than you planned for. For us - losing the axe-head would be a disappointment; for the fellow in the text: it’s a DEVASTATION. You can hear it in his plaintive cry: “Alas, my master! It was borrowed.’” In fact, ‘borrowed’ is too mild a translation. ‘Begged’ is better. “I had to beg for the use of that axe-head”.

It’s hard for us to understand what a big deal this is to the upset prophet-in-training. If you lose a tool in the middle of a job - you hop in the car and go down to Home Depot to get a replacement. It may be frustrating, but you wouldn’t ‘cry out’ about it. But not only IS THERE NO Home Depot anywhere near the banks of the Jordan - you can’t just go to the nearest hardware store to buy another axe head. But even if there was - this fellow couldn’t afford one.

For context, at this point in history - Israel is pretty much still living in the Bronze age. That means iron tools were very, very expensive - especially for a young ministry student. This young guy can barely scrape together enough money to pay for his tuition. A lost axe head - to pay back the owner for it .... why, this means weeks or months spent sweating to work off the debt he’s suddenly incurred.

Is a lost axe head the end of the world? Is it going to change the course of history or hinder God’s kingdom from growing? .... No, of course not. But if you’re the young man who has just lost it .... it’s a pretty big deal. For us it would be more like a university student who borrows the neighbour’s pickup truck without insurance and accidentally drives it into a river.

What’s your axe-head, Christian?

3 THE RESCUE, vv. 6-7

The poor student cries out to Elisha, “… My master … it’s gone!” And Elisha doesn’t panic, doesn’t fret. Verse 6, “Then the man of God said, ‘Where did it fall?” He’s calm, collected and just asks a diagnostic question. It’s a good thing Elisha’s on the scene - there always seems to be hope - even in times of devastation, when the man of God is around. Verse 6 continues … “When he showed him the place, he cut off a stick and threw it in there and made the iron float.”

Elisha is directed to the location where the axe head plunged into the water. He puts that in his memory bank. Then he grabs a ‘stick’ and cuts it. The word translated ‘cut’ is fairly precise. Most likely, Elisha takes a branch, cuts it to the right size and shape for the axe head - in other words, he’s making a new handle for the old axe head. This is a new beginning.

But then he takes that new handle and just throws it into the Jordan river. What good is that going to do?! Even if you are no scientist, you know that a stick of wood will float ON the water, no matter how perfectly you have cut it and shaped it for the axe head. You also know that a chunk of iron doesn’t float - it has sunk to the bottom of the river - that’s where it’s going to stay. At least that’s where it will stay, unless God intervenes and overrules the laws of nature to bring the iron up.

And that’s exactly what God does. The stick goes into the water .... and up comes the axe head, up from the depths, up to the top. See it there, floating on the surface of the water. The text doesn’t go into more detail here, but it makes the most sense to me – that somewhere in the process, the iron head joined itself to the new wooden handle and the newly formed axe is what is floating on the surface. Verse 7, “And he said, ‘Take it up.’ So he reached out his hand and took it.” .... “And breathed a HUGE sigh of relief”. The text doesn’t actually say that either, but I’m sure that the axe-head borrower did exactly that.

Make sure you notice that this text isn’t focused on Elisha’s amazing powers. God does accomplish a miracle through the man of faith -but it’s clearly God who is going to get the glory here. Elisha doesn’t even know where the axe head went.

4 BRINGING IT HOME

So, there’s the miracle story. Now, what does it have to do with us today? Two things I want us to take from today’s text.

FIRST - I want you to see the PROVIDENCE OF GOD WORKING AHEAD.

God’s providence is the way He works out all things for the good of His people. Romans 8:28 in action. “All things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” As a Christian - you know that … I pray you know that. But sometimes you can get a picture of God that shows him always playing defense - like an expert shortstop in baseball. The pitcher throws the ball, the batter hits it - and then the shortstop reacts to the hit – if the ball is over his head – he jumps for it, if the hit is a grounder, he reaches down … sometimes even diving into the dirt - and then, if he’s all star material, he knows exactly where to throw the ball to make a play and get an out. Do you think of God like that? He’s providing for your needs, working out His good plan - but He’s reacting: The devil makes a move, something evil happens in the world and God plays defense – He responds to bring good out of it?

This text paints a different picture. It reveals God working ahead of time, preparing the way before there’s even a problem that needs solving. What do I mean by that? Well, let me show you what I mean from our text. How did the axe-man get his borrowed axe-head back? You say, “He cried out to Elisha and God did a miracle through his master, that’s how”. Correct. If the prophet hadn’t been there that day - the tool was gone. But how did Elisha end up on the construction site on the banks of the Jordan River? Remember - he wasn’t planning on going. So what happened? Well look back at v. 3, “Then one of them said, ‘Be pleased to go with your servants.’ And he answered, ‘I will go.’ (4) So he went with them.”

When we read through the story the first time - there is NO WAY you thought anything about the invitation to Elisha to come along .... but when we get to the end of the story and look back - we can so clearly see it: THAT little request and consent GOD WAS ALREADY AT WORK - saving the day.

I remember back in 1981 and the assassination attempt on President Reagan. John Hinckley shot him and the president, who wasn’t a young man, came very close to losing his life. One of the areas the bullet hit was around his stomach muscles. I just read this week that Reagan used to work out so often that doctors had told him years before to ease off because his chest and stomach muscles were so developed they were afraid this would contribute to a hernia eventually. But those overdeveloped stomach muscles helped slow down the bullet—and it stopped an inch from his heart. The ‘provision’ had been in place long before a need came along.

It you think back over the experiences of your life - and IF you belong to Jesus Christ - then you have a story of God’s provision for you - arranging circumstances when you had no idea what you needed. The Providence of God. Something happened in your life that you didn’t plan for - something happened that seemed meaningless - maybe even cruel. But when you look back on it years later - you see - THAT was the very occasion of God opening the floodgates of His good plan for you.

The businessman, who has invested decades into his career and worked his way, with integrity, to the top of his company, when the company decides he’s too expensive to keep around - they can save money by putting someone younger with lower salary expectations in his place. He’s forced out of his job - with a family to provide for and too old to be starting over. But looking back, years later - losing that job opened the door to better physical health, a new job that provided opportunity to minister for the Lord and there was always food on the table. What seemed at the time to be tragedy turned out to be part of God’s great blessing.

“Be pleased to go with your servants.” “I will go.” God has a hilarious way of providing for His people long before they have any idea of what they will need. See God’s providence.

SECOND - See the CONCERN THAT GOD HAS FOR THE LITTLE THINGS

The Concern God has for the LITTLE THINGS. To get what I’m saying here, we need to think about the historical context of our text. Think back to what was going on back in chapter 5 - Remember Naaman, the Syrian military commander, comes to Israel, looking for healing from his leprosy? He shows up in the palace with a letter from his king to Israel’s king - a matter of courtesy … but Israel’s king took it as anything BUT courtesy. Syria was a rival - a threat and here comes the chairman of that country’s military with a letter demanding a healing of an incurable disease. Israel’s king has a panic attack – he thinks this is Syria looking for a war.

The next section, after our text this morning - is chapter 6:8-23 - And the very next verse after our passage, verse 8, introduces that whole section. It tells us that ‘… the king of Syria was warring against Israel ...”.

The next passage after that - 6:24 - the end of chapter 7 - records how the ENTIRE ARMY of Syria invades Israel, surrounds its capitol city of Samaria and lays siege to it - bringing it to its knees and taking the whole city to the brink of starvation.

So surrounding our text, you have stories of international intrigue, military strategy, outright warfare - and national crisis – everyone in the capitol city is going to starve to death or die in battle … And right in the middle of all of those world-shaking problems - what do you have?

… You have an unnamed nobody who’s lost his axe head that was borrowed.

Don’t miss what this text is teaching us about God: God’s purposes don’t just have to do with the ‘BIG’ things of the universe … He cares about the small. He cares about those ‘little problems’ in your life that you think are beneath Him. My mom ‘got’ that - she would pray for her lost keys and praise the Lord when she found them. When I was a kid, I wasn’t sure what to think about that. Now I get it - she had great theology.

And, when you think about it - doesn’t that INCREASE, rather than DIMINISH His glory?! I mean, a God that speaks a whole universe into being … a God who guides the course of history … He has Plagues and Viruses to worry about … the constant threat of nations going to war - Surely a God with so much on His plate is too busy for me and my axe head!

No, He’s NOT! When Jesus says ‘even the very hairs of your head are numbered’ - He doesn’t just mean that God is good at math … He means that the God of the universe cares about details that small.

Corrie Ten Boom, who survived the Nazi concentration camps after her family was caught hiding Jews in 2 World War Holland: “The wonderful thing about praying is that you leave a world of not being able to do something, and enter God’s realm where everything is possible. He specializes in the impossible. Nothing is too great for His Almighty power. Nothing is too small for His love.”

“Nothing is too great for His almighty power. Nothing is too small for His love.”

Christ can die on the cross for EVERYBODY … But did He die for ME?! If you will take him as your only hope and surrender your life into His hands – you can know He did die for ‘little, insignificant’ you.

In the early hours of 5 May 1940, the Second World War was still in its early stages and Lieutenant Commander Rupert Lonsdale’s submarine was stuck on the sea floor. It seemed like the submarine he was commanding would become the watery tomb of Lonsdale and the crew he was responsible for.

The submarine was named the Seal - and the Seal had been sent on a dangerous mission to make its way from England to the Kattegat Sea, between Denmark and Sweden, which also led to northern Germany. The Seal was to lay mines in that sea with the goal of destroying German shipping.

The commanding officer of the entire flotilla protested the mission: the Germans had already mined the sea and were constantly patrolling the area with ships and planes. He was sure that the Seal would never make it home from such a dangerous mission. The protest was rejected.

Well, under the capable leadership of Lieutenant Commander Lonsdale, the Seal managed to lay its mines and eluded enemy ships on the hunt. The crew relaxed and dinner was served. But suddenly, there was an unexpected reverberation of a violent explosion. The mooring cable of a German mine had scraped along the hull of the sub and the floating mine had been pulled against the it - exploding and tearing open the rear of the hull. Everything - men, food - equipment - it all went flying. … the stern was severely damaged and the controls no longer worked. The ship sank to the bottom of the sea.

All eyes were on Lonsdale. The life of every crew member was in his hands. He was in charge. What would he do? The crew knew he was a Christian. He had always shown calm control and wisdom. But they had never been in a situation like this. Lonsdale cave the order, ‘Stand by to surface’. Then, “Surface’. The boat started to rise … but then it sank back to the sea floor again. The problem was that the weight of the water inside the boat was pressing the damaged stern down hard into the mud, while the bow pointed upwards to the water’s surface at an angle of 25 degrees.

They tried several times to surface but the Seal wouldn’t budge … and every man on board knew they were in big trouble. There was no ventilation. The air was turning foul. The smells of food, sweat, disinfectant, oil - all combined into a nauseating mixture. Even sitting still, the men were gasping for air. Taking three steps had the same effect as a 100 yard sprint would, under normal conditions.

The crew members knew what was next - they were going to die slowly, from carbon dioxide poisoning.

When the submarine had been under the water for 23 hours, Commander Lonsdale called a prayer meeting on board. A couple of the crew members refused - One said, ‘I don’t consider you can surface a boat by praying.’ But the rest of the crew was at least open to the idea. Lonsdale encouraged the men:

“We have been in some tight spots before and we’ve come through. With God’s help we shall do so again.’

And then he prayed: ‘Dear God, we have tried everything in our power to save ourselves and we have failed. Yet we believe that you can do things that are impossible to men. Please, O Lord, deliver us.’” Then he started the Lord’s Prayer and found himself joined with a lot of voices more full of reverence and feeling than he had ever thought possible coming from a bunch of sailors.

Lonsdale closed in prayer and the prayer meeting was over.

Does the God of heaven have time for a handful of sailors, when the world was at war?!

The answer to the prayers came almost immediately. Lonsdale suddenly had an idea. He had a rope rigged up along the length of the sloping sub. Then he told all the men to grab onto the rope and use it to help them make their way as far forward as they could to the front of the vessel. It was kind of a ridiculous idea, when you think about it - 50 men standing at the front of a submarine - to provide enough leverage to loosen the stern which was firmly stuck in the mud?!

The men tried anyway - even though, in their physical condition, at that point - every step seemed like a mile … they made their way forward. Lonsdale gave the orders - the last two tanks were blown, they managed to get the engines going and slowly, agonizingly - the Seal shuddered from end to end. Then she broke free of the seabed, levelled out and slowly, ever so slowly, moved upwards until finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the men could hear the lapping of the surface waves against the hull. She was up. GREAT NEWS! Answered prayer!

But no sooner had the submarine hit the surface and the men could start to breathe fresh air - than the patrolling planes of the German air force unleashed an onslaught that was devastating. The Seal looked like a mortally wounded whale. There was no way of escape - so Commander Lonsdale made the decision to protect the lives of his men by giving himself up to the Germans. An enemy floatplane landed alongside the sub and Lonsdale jumped into the sea from his sub and swam over to it. He spent 5 years as a prisoner of war in various camps. And so did his crew members.

The crew of the Seal stuck together after the war and many of them recognized that not only were they were still alive, but they also had a saving faith in Jesus Christ, because before they even knew what to ask for - God saw fit to give them a submarine commander who was a Christian and who would lead them in prayer at the bottom of the sea. After the war, Lieutenant Commander Lonsdale actually went to school and became a pastor, touching countless lives - in no small part because of his experience in the Seal.

So, “why THIS miracle? Why is this in the Bible?!” With all of the other miracles recorded in the books of Kings … I mean, Elisha has already saved a group from dying of poison … kept a widow from losing her sons to slavery and from starving to death herself … he has brought a dead child back to life .... So why a floating axe-head - an item from the hardware store?

Because the God of the universe wants you to know that for Him - it IS that important! Do you see what that means for those of you struggling with anxiety? Sure, you believe that there is a God who is All-powerful. You believe that God ‘so loved the world that He gave His only Son’ .... But the world is a big place with billions of people. Maybe you even believe that God could stoop low enough to provide YOU a way of salvation - - maybe, just maybe, the God of the universe, who hung the stars in the solar system .... maybe He loves you enough to save you from your sins and promise you heaven when you die. We are going to celebrate communion in just a minute – and you are in awe that God would love you enough to send his Son to die on the cross … for you. You worship Him for that

… but there are so, so many things that threaten your peace, in the here and now – before heaven. There are million things that could go wrong in the course of a day - for you, or for your loved ones .... things far too small for a GLORIOUS GOD to care about … but things that keep you up at night, fears that steal your peace.

A Biblical view of God says: “Cast all your cares upon Him … for He cares for YOU … no matter how small the problem.”

Dale Davis: “Aren’t you glad that this is one time, God gave his preacher the axe?”