Sermon Tone Analysis

Responding to Crisis: Curse God or Cling?

INTRODUCTION

TURN TO 2 Kings 6:24

Well, this has been quite a week, hasn’t it?

Last Sunday it was pouring with rain and it just didn’t stop.

In fact, by the time it eventually did stop - we had a lake where half of our city is supposed to be - two of our own families have been evacuated from their homes, others of you are watching online because there is no way for you to get here today - the highways and roads that function like arteries, connecting the body of this province together - have been broken and you’ve been cut off from people you love, cut off from work, cut off from food, in some cases.

You went to the store to find empty refrigerators where the milk is supposed to be.

One person managed to find a couple of 4 litre jugs of milk at a small store - and showed the receipt: He spent $32 - $16 per jug!

Meanwhile, there’s very likely somebody in the city who filled the bathtub up and had a bath in milk today - they bought up as much as they could fit in their trunk, only to realize after the fact that there’s an expiry date and there’s no way they can drink it all.

We’ve learned a lesson in inflation - when times are uncertain and the supplies are in more demand - the price goes up.

How much more when there is a seige around your city that has choked every supply route in and every exit out.

Samaria’s situation reminds of Post WW1 Germany where it took a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy a single loaf of bread, or to the inflation that has been going on in Venezuela, where inflation, since 2016 has been 53.8

MILLION percent and a 5 pound chicken, in 2018, cost 14.6 million Bolivars.

Those are some expensive McNuggets.

In our text, Ben-Hadad has gathered all of his forces together and the entire Syrian army has stormed across the international border, stomped through Israel’s sovereign territory and headed straight for the Northern Kingdom’s capital city of Samaria.

This is full-scale war.

The strategy is brilliant: Surround the most important city, the home of the king - choke it to death - and the rest of the nation will collapse.

Crush the head and the snake will die.

Today’s text is so timely for us.

We join the people of Israel in a time of crisis.

And the focus of our passage is on the question: How do you respond to crisis?

You have one of two options - you can CURSE GOD … or, you can CLING.

As we make our way through the text - I want you to think about your response.

Crisis is coming to your life - whether it’s this week or next year.

So how will you respond?

READ 6:24-29

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1 A DEVASTATING SEIGE, 6:24-29

Of course the success of a seige increases with the amount of time it lasts.

When the enemy first surrounds your city - you tense up, anxiety rises, you see the spears and shields, glistening in the sunlight - you wait for the army that clearly intends your destruction - you wait for the soldiers to storm your walls and break down your gates.

So, when you see them set up their camp, only to stay in it - cook food and take off their armour … at first you relax a little bit.

As long as they stay ‘OUT THERE’ and you are safely behind the protective barriers, ‘IN HERE’ - well, it may hinder your travel plans, but you feel a litte bit ‘safe’.

For the first few days.

But as day turns into week, which turns into another week, which turns into month - you have eaten your fridge empty and there is no more produce on the shelves of the grocery store - and somebody has gone and hoarded the milk and toilet paper ... (sound familiar) - well then the anxiety rises again.

The cost of everything goes up .... food becomes scarce and even though our text doesn’t tell us exactly how long the seige of the Syrians lasts - you know that it has to be a long time ...

In fact, things became so severe that verse 25 tells us that, there came a point where ‘… a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver and a fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver.’

Can you believe those prices?!

And right now, you’re looking at me with blanks stares.

“I have no idea what the going rate is today for a donkey’s head OR a kab of dove’s dung”.

“For that matter, I have no idea what a shekel of silver is worth either.”

Well, a shekel of silver would be about the average wage for a labourer for one month’s work.

So six and a half years worth of work for all the meat you can dig out of the head of a donkey.

Now, if you don’t think of it today as an essential part of a well-balanced 21st century, Western diet - then just know that people in ancient Israel had no more affinity for donkey cheek than we do.

It was UNCLEAN to eat, first of all.

And second of all - it’s gross.

Do you see the kind of food shortage that’s going on right now?

As for dove’s dung - that would be fuel to cook on and there are some scholars who say that we aren’t really talking about dove’s dung - that it was a nickname for carob pods.

Okay, well if that makes you feel better, that’s fine - you can make it carob pods, but either way - paying five months wages for 500 ml.

pop sized bottle of the stuff - you know times are desperate.

But verses 26-29 make it clear that we haven’t begun to plumb the depths of devastation yet.

The king is walking along the city wall - observing, first hand - the hopelessness of his situation: There, outside the wall - the organized, armoured and overwhelming size of the Syrian army - soldiers in the same stations they have been in for months ...

And … on the inside - the king’s people imprisoned in their own city … starving.

As he walks, lost deep in his own thoughts of misery … a female voice shakes him back into the present.

Verse 26, “Help, my lord, O king!”

Well, the king hears the cry for help and instantly thinks: “Food.

Here’s another one of his subjects asking him to do the impossible and supply her starving belly with food.”

He answers in voice dripping with sarcasm.

Verse 27, “If the LORD will not help you, how shall I help you?

From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?”

“You’ve seen the threshing floor - empty of grain - the winepress is desert dry.

Do you think I can do omething that the Lord won’t do for you?”

But it turns out this isn’t just about a lack of food … There are two women in the city - and the starvation has reached such a peak that they make a deal.

“This woman .... said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’”

We did just that.

Verse 29, “We boiled my son in a pot - and ate him.”

Let that sink in.

Mothers who make the decision that the only way for them to survive is to consume the flesh of their children?! Can you ever imagine being so desperate for food that you would go … there?! Reminds me of the movie from the 90s, “Alive” - based on a true story of A rugby team from Uruguay, that crashed in the Andes mountains and in order to survive on an icy mountaintop where there is no food - the survivors decide to eat the flesh of their dead relatives and friends.

… I’ll tell you right now - there is no way I’m eating another person - no matter how hopeless things are - I don’t need to live on this earth that badly.

“Jesus, take me home - time for me to go!”

Well the reason the woman in our text is calling out to the king - is that the next day, when it was the turn of the other woman to serve up her child - she hid him and didn’t fulfill her side of the deal.

This woman wants justice.

When the king hears this, he reflexively reaches for his robe, grabs hold of the neck and tears it wide open … a classic sign of grief and anguish.

And you would do the same thing if you were in his place: Your subjects have descended into cannibalism.

When you are a leader - responsible for anything - strip away every other measure of success - the one foundational mark that you have done well - is that you’ve left things better than you found them.

Well there’s no way you can say that when you inherited a country that was prospering … and you leave it with people literally eating their own children.

This isn’t just human tragedy - this situation is a case of judgment from God on His people.

This N. Kingdom had been unfaithful to God from the beginning - making up their own style of worship and ignoring God’s clear instructions … turning away from worshiping the true God altogether and running after the

The LORD has had enough.

And the people actually shouldn’t be surprised by where they are, because God had promised years ago - that rebellion against Him would bring severe consequences.

In fact - Deuteronomy 28:52-53, “They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land.

And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you.

(53) And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in athe distress with which your enemies shall distress you.”

The curse of Moses had come true for one helpless woman who made a death pact with her neighbor and the king is undone by grief.

Completely understandable.

But the question is: What does King Jehoram DO with his grief?

What do you do with yours?

You live in a world that isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.

So where do you turn with ?

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2 TWO RESPONSES TO THE CRISIS, 6:30-7:2.

A THE KING WHO CURSES

At first glance, it seems as though the king is showing the signs of a heart filled with worship - tearing his clothes as a sign of repentance for the evil that has brought the trouble that’s about to destroy his nation.

But the next verses tell a different story.

READ 6:30-33.

“(A)nd he said, ‘May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today..’.”

The king isn’t repenting - he’s plotting murder.

But wait!

Elisha is the one who saved the king’s bacon - when Naaman the Syrian military commander came, carrying his leprosy - looking for a cure in Israel.

This very king was terrified - and it was the prophet who stepped up and who God used as His agent of healing.

This is an irrational threat - but it’s not an idle one.

He sends a messenger to ambush the prophet while he isn’t expecting it.

Do you see what’s going on here?