Bible In One Year-Day 131 (Saturday, May 11, 2013)
Commentary: 2Kings6-8. When we read 2Kings3-5, we saw some difficult situations in which God spoke through the mouth of His servant, Elisha, in which the testimony depended on the recipient’s response. In chapters6-8, the situations were more intense and in them, God did not wait for the response of the people. In difficult situations, we need to seek the mind of God concerning it. When God gives His word concerning His intention for such situation, He could not be ridiculed. The King’s servant ridiculed God’s word that came out of Elisha’s mouth and he received the verdict of “seeing without partaking”; 2 Kings 7:2 “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.” This is divine curse that came to be because of blasphemy. If the man had kept quiet and not verbalize his doubt, he would have saved his own life. The father of John the Baptist also made the same mistake in which he verbalized his doubt before the Angel of God and he received dumbness.
Luke 1:18-20 And Zacharias said to the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years. And the angel answering said to him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak to thee, and to show thee these glad tidings. And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.
To doubt in the heart is a sin on its own; verbalizing it against the word of God is more grievous in the sight of God. If the word concerns you and you alone, doubting it can makes you to lose the testimony because you might refuse to take necessary actions to realize that. For instance, Naaman would have lost the testimony of his cleansing if he had totally refused to bath in river Jordan as instructed by the man of God. If God had summed up a plan in His economy and somebody speaks impossibility, one might be bargaining for something else. The birth of John the Baptist was not for his parent but to prepare the way for the coming King of kings; that was God’s plan towards the salvation of man. The doubt of his father in the temple made him receive what he did not bargain for; his head and mouth couldn’t agree to process data again.
In the case of Elisha, the situation was so bad that mothers started eating their children; it was a case that needed divine intervention. The king’s servant who was supposed to support the king was the one with a different heart. If you needed a friend to join you in prayers, make sure you prayerfully seek for the ones with like-mind with you; don’t pick based on sight suggestion. When God speaks, we must be careful how we respond even if there is doubt within us. You could ask God to help you just as the man cried out to Jesus in Mark 9:24 “And immediately the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” The word of God which was spoken by the mouth of Elisha came to pass without any hindrance. The amazing thing was that the connection to the fulfillment was through the rejected, the Lepers. God can use anything and any means to make His word come to pass. In many cases, men engage logics in figuring out how God solves problems; this is a failing factor, because it is the root of unbelief and doubt. The question put forward to Abraham in the scripture was “Is any thing too hard for the LORD? …” Gen18:14. It was very unfortunate that the famine in the case of Elisha rounded off with the death of the king’s servant (he didn’t start the famine, nor was he responsible for it) 2 Kings 7:20 “And so it fell out unto him: for the people trode upon him in the gate, and he died.” Remember that the woman with the jar of oil shut her door against doubters, speakers of impossibilities; you must learn to shut your ears against agents of impossibilities around. I pray that you will not miss your portion in God’s economy in the name of Jesus. Our next reading is 2Kings9-11. Keep the fire burning and alive.
Matthew 13:58 And he did not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.
Jeremiah 32:27 Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?
2 Kings 4:4-5 “And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vesselsto her; and she poured out.”
Pastor Supo Abayode (+1-302-230-6792)