Folks, we're turning this morning to 2nd Kings and the
chapter 6, Second Kings, Chapter 6.
We're going to read a couple of verses there and then move into
Chapter 7. So the Old Testament Book of
Second Kings. Second Kings Chapter 6, just to
give you the background here, you'll find that the armies of
Syria have besieged Israel and they're starving them out.
People are literally dying of starvation.
So you think we're gathering this morning and for a harvest
Thanksgiving to thank the Lord for the harvest that has come
in, come in. And yet here's a situation where
people are dying of starvation and the situation is desperate.
If we go down, first of all to verse 24, Second Kings chapter
6, and we just want to read verses 24 and 25.
And it says, and it came to pass after this that Ben Haydad, king
of Syria, gathered all his host and went up and besieged
Samaria. And there was a great famine in
Samaria. And behold, they besieged it
until an ass's head was sold for four score pieces of silver, and
the fourth part of a Cove of dove's dung for five pieces of
silver. And then if we go down to
Chapter 7 and the first verse, second King 7 reading there at
the first verse, then Elisha said, He ye the word of the
Lord, Thus saith the Lord, tomorrow 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.
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 shall not eat thereof.
And there were 4 leprous men at the entering of the gate.
And they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die?
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 here, we die also.
Now therefore, come and let us fall onto the host of the
Syrians. If they save us alive we shall
live, and if they kill us we shall but die.
And they rose up in the twilight to go onto 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. 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 load, the king of Israel have
hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of
the Egyptians to come upon us. 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.
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. 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. So they came and called unto the
Porter of the city. And they told them, saying, We
came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no man
there, neither voice of man, but horses tied and asses tied, and
the tents as they were. And he called the porters, and
they told it to the King's house within.
And the king arose in the night, and said unto his servants, I
will now show you what the Syrians have done to us.
They know that we be hungry, therefore are they gone out of
the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, When they
come out of the city, we shall catch them alive and get into
the city. And one of his servants answered
and said, Let some take, I pray thee. 5 of the horses that
remain which are left in the city, behold, they are all as
the multitude of Israel that are left in it.
Behold, I say, they are even as all the multitude of the
Israelites that are consumed. And let us send and see.
And they took therefore 2 chariot horses.
And the king sent after the host of the Syrians, saying, Go and
see. And they went after them unto
Jordan, and lo, all the way was full of garments and vessels,
which the Syrians castaway in their haste.
And the messengers returned and told the king, And the people
went out and spoiled the tents of the Syrians.
So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two
measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the
Lord. And the king appointed the Lord,
on whose hand he leaned, to have the charge of the gate, and the
people trod upon him in the gate, And he died, as the man of
God had said, who spake, when the king came down to him?
And it came to pass, as the man of God had spoken to the king,
saying, 2 measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine
flour for a shekel shall be tomorrow about this time in the
gate of Samaria, that the Lord answered the man of God, and
said, Now behold, if the Lord should make windows in heaven,
might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt
see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.
And so it fell out unto him, for the people trod upon him in the
gate, and he died. Amen.
And we trust the Lord will bless for reading this word for his
own namesake. Let's bow together in a word of
prayer. Father in heaven, we lift up our
hearts afresh and anew this morning, even in our Saviour's
precious name. We thank you, Lord, again, even
for Thy precious word, for the privilege of having it open
before us. And Father, we pray now that
indeed our hearts and our minds would be as open as this book.
Draw near to us, we pray. Pour out the very spirit of God
upon us. Lord, we pray that today they
would prepare our hearts and minds that they would draw near.
And Lord, if there any here this morning that have not that
assurance of salvation, then even before this service comes
to a close, Lord, may you speak with that voice that wakes the
dead. To that end we do pray emptiest
now of sin and of self. Nail the old flesh to the cross.
Lord, anoint us with the spirit of the living God, and grant
that help and that power and that fire that cometh from
above, for we ask it in Jesus name, Amen.
Amen. Here in Second Kings Chapter 7,
as I've said, the people of Israel are under siege by the
Syrian Army. Their supplies have been cut
off. The nation was starving to
death. There's no way out.
There's no way of escape. They were vastly outnumbered by
one of the most powerful armies in their day.
People are dying of starvation, foods running out.
As we've just seen in the chapter, they'd begun to eat the
horses. There was only a handful left
and therefore they're in a very fearful position.
But the Israelites had forgotten 2 very important things.
They'd forgotten the might of their heavenly Father to provide
a miracle, and they'd forgotten the right of a holy faith to
expect a miracle. And God did the unexpected.
God did the impossible because He specialises in both.
The Lord sent an invisible and jhalak army and He caused that
Syrian Army to turn tail and run and to leave behind them in
their haste. All the food, all the money, all
the clothing that they brought with them.
Everything that the nation of Israel needed was now left
behind as they heard this sound of a great army coming against
them and they ran and escaped back to their homeland.
And yet no one would ever have known as they were inside the
wall starving, if it wasn't for the faith of four lepers who had
the boldness and the audacity to discover what had happened and
then return to tell the people of Israel.
And because of what they did, an entire nation was saved.
They went from starvation to salvation.
That's really the theme that we see here in Chapter 7, from
starvation to salvation. Now, keeping that in mind, that
Old Testament miracles, they're a little bit like New Testament
parables. They're written for a purpose.
They have a heavenly meaning, and they're given to instruct us
and to teach us. And so as we come to look at the
7th chapter this morning, there's a couple of things I
want to point out. First of all, the situation that
they faced. The nation of Israel was
starving. In the previous chapter, in
those two verses, we read verses 24 and 25, we're told.
And it came to pass after this, the Binhaydad king of Syria
gathered all his host and went up and besieged Samaria.
And there was a great famine in Samaria.
And behold, they besieged it until and Ass's head was sold
for A4 score pieces of silver and the fourth part of a cab of
Dove's dung for five pieces of silver.
Now to pause there for a moment. The Holy Ghost here is
emphasising just how serious this famine was.
Things were so bad that a Donkey Head burger was being sold for
80 pieces of silver and the only thing for dessert was Dove
droppings. Now gents, I don't know what
you're going to get for your dinner when you get home from
church today. But you imagine if you go home
and you sit down and you say, dear, what's for dinner?
And out she comes and said it's a Donkey Head burger.
And if you're a good boy and you eat all of that, here's a plate
full of Dove's dung to wash it down.
You know, we can't really imagine, can we, this whole
situation of starvation because of the the country that we're
living in. But things were bad and they got
worse. Now you may be thinking, how can
they get worse? Donkey head burgers and Doves
dung? How can it get worse than that?
Well, it got so bad that some of the people even indeed resorted
to cannibalism. There was a mother who came
before the king to get a dispute between her and another mother
settled. And in chapter 6, there in
verses 28 and 29, we're told. And the king said unto her, What
aileth thee? And she answered, This woman
said unto me, Give me thy son, that we may eat him today, and
we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat
him. And I said unto her, On the next
day, Give me thy son, that we may eat him.
And she have hid her son. Can we even imagine the
desperation to get to that position where people are so
desperate that they'll eat anything they're so hungry?
And yet we live in a part of the world where we know nothing of
starvation. Well, the experts tell us that
to this day, 1/3 of the world's population goes to bed hungry
every night. But this whole picture here of
physical starvation reminds me of the greater famine that we
see in the world today. It's the famine the prophet Amos
spoke of in Amos chapter 8 and verse 11, when he said, Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send a famine in the
land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of
hearing the words of the Lord. Now, if the answer to a physical
famine is food, but the answer to a spiritual famine is faith
in the word of God. And this world is hungry today.
And the reason why it is feeding on the filth and savouring on
the sin of this world is because we're living in a day when
there's a famine of the word of God.
If you're to drive down through the street of, of Carrie Duff
this morning, I wonder how many people there are, if even the
majority of the people in Carrie Duff never left their homes to
go out to the church to hear the word of God.
Today, we're living in a nation that has been blessed with the
gospel. We're living in a province that
in years gone by has seen great revival.
Back in the the 1857 revival, there was such a move in Carrie
Duff that they said that that the whiskey flowed down the
street as people were pouring it out as they got converted.
And yet today we look around and we see we're living in a day
when people have no interest in the things of God.
Yeah, worse than that, they spurn the things of God.
You seek to witness to people, just invite them along to
church, and you see the disdain in their face.
And then for those who do go out to church, there's so many
churches out there today that don't even deserve the name, the
Gospels not being preached. People are going from one to
another, just trying to find somewhere where the truth is
preached. Augustine was right when he said
the hard is restless and it will not rest until it finds its rest
in God. Today there's a spiritual famine
even in this province in which we live, but there's even
greater ones in other nations of the world.
So here they were. They were starving.
They are also susceptible. Looking again there at chapter
6, verses 26 and 27. And as the king of Israel was
passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying,
Help my Lord, O king. And he said, If the Lord do not
help thee, when shall I help thee?
In other words, as the King's passing by at this time of
famine, there's a woman crying out for food, crying out to the
king to help. And even the king was unable to
help. The king couldn't help, There
was nothing he could do. Money couldn't help.
There was no food to buy. The influence couldn't help.
The king couldn't do anything. The government was no help.
In fact, they were part of the problem.
Education was no help. The more they learnt about this
situation, the less they wish they knew.
And similarly, if you're here this morning and you're without
Christ, you're in a very susceptible situation
spiritually this morning, as susceptible as the people in
this passage of Scripture. Now, you may think this morning
that you're doing all right without the Lord.
Yes, you're sitting in church, you're not saved, but you're
going through life. You've got tomorrow planned,
this week planned. And you may think that you're
going through life and you're doing all right without the
Lord. But little do you know that
there's a day coming when the only thing that will matter is
whether or not you're in Christ. When you come to death's door,
it doesn't matter how much money you've got in the bank.
It doesn't matter indeed what other possessions you have in
this world. When you come to that door of
death and that Bony hand of the Angel of death knocks upon your
heart door, there'll be no one else can help you.
The king on the throne won't be able to help you.
Politicians won't be able to help you.
The only one that will be able to help you is Christ.
And that's what they're learning here in this passage of
Scripture. You may find out too late that
only God is our refuge and strength, a very present help
and trouble. So this is a very sad situation.
You look there at verse 30 of chapter 6, 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.
So even the king here could do nothing in this situation.
In those days when a man would tear his clothes, when a man
would put sackcloth on, it was a sign of utter desperation.
It was a sign that all hope was gone.
And someone once said, man can live about 40 days without food.
He can live about 3 days without water, he can live a few minutes
without air, but he can't live a second without hope.
What's your hope for eternity? Where will you spend eternity?
When the apostle Paul was writing to the Ephesians, he
reminded them of what they were before they came to know the
Lord. And he said that at the time you
were without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of
Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no
hope, and without God in the world.
How many families in Carrie Duff could we ride over the front
door of that home, even though they're nice people, even though
they're good neighbours, even though they've got many
qualities that society would commend them for over?
How many homes could we write that there's no hope because
they're without God and without Christ?
This is the situation that they faced.
But then something happens. When you come into Chapter 7
here, you find that four men, they decide that they're going
to step out by faith. The story turns their attention
now to these 4 lepers. These 4 lepers are going to very
quickly go from rags to riches as they decide to take a step of
faith. Everyone else is behind the
walls, hiding from the enemy, and they're sitting there.
And because they're lepers, they're outside the gates.
They're not allowed in. And as these 4 lepers sit there,
they're a picture indeed of the Saint who by faith accepts the
riches that he's found in Christ.
Now notice the fantastic discovery they make in Chapter 7
and verse 3. And there were 4 leprous men at
the entering of the gate. And they said one to another,
why sit we here until we die? 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 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.
I love the the, the logical way and the attitude that these men
have. They're saying, look, if we just
sit here with leprosy and do nothing, we'll die.
You know, what's the point of just sitting here being
miserable? Let's do something.
Even if we do the wrong thing, let's do something.
Now, of course they could have played it safe.
They could have just sat there and done nothing.
And if they'd sat there and done nothing, they would have
eventually died, either through starvation or through leprosy.
And isn't it a solemn thought to think that as far as God's
salvation is concerned, what do you have to do to perish in
eternity? And the answer is nothing.
Do nothing. Do nothing at all.
You know, you don't have to go and burn Bibles or tear down
churches. Just do nothing.
Just die as you've lived and you'll be in a lost eternity.
I came across a little poem some years ago about a man who did
nothing. It says he made no mistakes, he
took no wrong Rd. He never fumble the ball, he
never went down Neath the weight of a load.
He simply did nothing at all. He lost no hard fight in defence
of the right, he never bled with his back to the wall, he never
felt faint in his clone climb to the light.
He simply did nothing at all. So death came nigh, for life
slipped by and he feared for the judgement hall.
When they asked him why, he said with a sigh, I simply did
nothing at all. And doesn't that sum up a lot of
people today? They're going through life.
They're they're, they're eating, drinking, living, breathing.
They've got physical life, but spiritually there's no life in
them. They're without Christ.
And perhaps there's someone here this morning and you know, you
need to be saved, but so far that poem's all about you.
So far you've done nothing at all.
You're not saved. You haven't come to the Lord.
You haven't sought the Lord, You haven't got to that point where
you've prayed and said, Lord, give me Christ or I die.
You just do nothing. It's a solemn thing to think
doing nothing is all it takes to go out into a lost eternity.
But notice the desperation here of these men in verses 5 to 7.
And they rose up in the twilight to go onto the camp of the
Syrians. And when they come to the
uttermost part of the camp, behold, there was no man there.
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, the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.
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 they fled for their If these 4 lepers had not decided to get
up and to go forward by faith to take that step of faith.
If we sit here at the gate, we'll die.
If we go into the city, we'll die of starvation.
So let's take a step of faith and let's go towards the the way
of what we think is the enemy. And if they hadn't have done
that, they would have missed out on the blessings that God had
for them. You see, the Lord had already
dealt with the enemy. He'd sent this noise into the
camp of the Assyrians. They thought a great army was
coming and they'd fled. And while everybody's dying of
starvation, the tents were full of food, full of drink, full of
raiment, full of gold and silver.
Great blessing was waiting for them.
And as I read that, I wonder, you know, how many people are
there. They're just ignore the gospel,
neglect the gospel and they don't realise the great great
blessings that are waiting for them if they got saved.
For those of you that know me and know my testimony, I was a
atheist until I was 23 years of age.
Never went to church as a child, never went to Sunday school,
never went to a Sunday service. I was 23 years of age before I
heard the gospel for the first time and got saved, and after
having lived indeed a life without Christ, thinking as an
atheist that I was in charge of my life and all was well, and
then getting saved, I can tell you after almost 40 years of
salvation, I would never ever want to go back to live that way
again. Having lived on both sides of
the fence as it were, I would never swap what I have in this
life. I remember speaking to a man
years ago and I was witnessing to him and he said to me one day
he said, he said, how do you know there there is a God?
How do you know there is a heaven and a hell?
He said, what happens if you die and you discover there's no
heaven? And I said to him, you know,
isn't that a great question? And I said to him, I said, let
me, let me answer that question. I said, if I was to die tomorrow
and find out that there is no heaven, I said, let me tell you
something. I still would not swap my
Christian life for anything because of the joy of salvation
and the presence of Christ and the blessedness that it is to
live for the Lord. And that's speaking with almost
40 years experience. But I said to him, but let me
tell you something, what if I'm right?
What if there is a heaven, there is a hell?
And I said, what if you die tomorrow?
As you've lived without Christ, you've lost everything.
Not only have you lost your immortal soul, but you've lost
out on the greatest blessing that any man, woman, or young
person could receive, that blessing of salvation in Christ
and eternal life. These men, if they hadn't have
taken just a step of faith, they would never have known what was
waiting for them and the blessings that were there.
And you know, the whole message of this chapter is that you need
to take a step of faith. These men were just lepers.
They had nothing. You're in better health
physically today than these lepers were and therefore you
need to take a step of faith. The situation they faced, the
man who stepped out by faith, but then noticed these men also
had to share their good news. Here they were.
They're enjoying everything. They come across these tents and
they're eating food, they're gorging themselves.
They're finding all of the these new clothes in the tents.
Now remember, they're lepers, they're in rags.
And so here they are, they're dressing in these new clothes.
Then they're finding gold and silver.
And So what do they do? Let's go over there and dig a
hole and bury it. So we've got it for the future.
Then they go into the next tent and again they eat and they
drink and they find some more treasure.
Let's go bury that over there. And then they think, just a
minute, everyone else is dying of starvation in Israel and
we've now got food, raiment and treasure.
We need to go back and tell them.
They knew that they were responsible in verse 9.
Then as they said, one to another, we do not.
Well, this day is a day of good tidings and we hold our peace.
Just imagine if they'd never told anybody.
Imagine all those that would have died, the men, the women,
the children that would have perished if these men had not
gone and shared the good news. And that's the same
responsibility that falls upon every believer.
Surely the most selfish person in the world is the Christian
who refuses to tell others the gospel, who refuses to tell
others about the love of Christ, the need of salvation, the
indeed the heaven to be won and the hell to be shunned.
Now, of course, some Christians have the attitude, you know, how
can I tell others about Christ? My attitude always is, you know,
if you love the Lord and you really glimpse even a little of
what awaits you in glory, how could you not want to tell
others about? It was Oscar Hammerstein who
said a bell isn't a bell until it's rung.
A song isn't a song until it's sung.
Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay.
Love isn't love until you give it away.
How much do you love the Lord? How much are you giving the
gospel and deed to others? And they knew also they were
accountable in verse 9. 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, You know, if you've been saved, and you've come into
the unsearchable riches of Christ, then, believer, you're
accountable to God the Father, who said, When I say unto the
wicked, Thou shalt surely die, And they'll give us to him, not
warning nor speakers to warn the wicked from his wicked way to
save his life. The same wicked man shall die in
his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand.
Here's the Lord speaking to a believer saying his blood will I
require at thine hand. You know, that's one of the
verses the Lord used to call me into the ministry when I got
saved. Having no Christian background,
you know, it was the last thing in the world I wanted personally
was to give up my job and career and go into the ministry.
But you know, when I read that little verse, his blood will I
require at thine hand. If you don't warn him, that's
when I stopped arguing. And I knew that the Lord had
something for me to do. There was a Christian man who
was holidaying in the Middle East, and he was trying to
witness to his Arab guide, But the Arab just wasn't interested.
And the Christian just kept pestering him and persistently
trying to talk to him about the Lord and his need of salvation.
And what struck my attention was that eventually the Arab got
upset with him. So the Christian man said to
him, look, I just want you to know that I'm sharing the gospel
with you because I want you to be saved and I don't want you to
be lost. And the Arab didn't say anything
for a moment. And then finally the Arab said
this. He says, you don't want to
commit the sin of the desert, do you?
And the Christian man said to him, he said, what's the sin of
the desert? And the Arab said to him, the
sin of the desert is to know where there's water, not tell
anybody about it. In other words, just leave them
to perish. And I wonder today how many
Christians are spiritually committing the sin of the
desert. They know the way of salvation,
but they're not sharing it with others.
The situation they faced, the lepers who stepped out by faith,
These men just shared their good news.
But then notice last of all, the man who spurned the good news.
What amazes me in this passage of Scripture is that in the
midst of all this blessing, there's one man who didn't
believe the nation was saved. Everybody's eating and drinking
and making merry, except for one sceptic.
He didn't believe because of his unbelief, he missed out on the
blessing of God. How did he do it?
How does anyone miss out on the blessing of God?
Well, look at the opening 2 verses here of Chapter 7.
Then Elisha said, hear ye the word of the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord, tomorrow 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.
So what he's saying is here, look, you're in the midst of a
famine, you're being starved to death here.
But he's saying, listen, tomorrow there's going to be
such an abundance of, of flour and barley that it'll be sold
for those cheap prices. And then we're told then a Lord
on whose hand the king leaned, so here's a man of influence,
here's a man of position. He answered the man of God and
said, behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might
this thing be? In other words, even God
couldn't do that. And he said, Behold, thou shalt
see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.
So Elisha preached that God had given his word that the next day
at this time there'd be specials going on barley and on indeed
the price of flour. As old Charles Spurgeon said,
God's word was fulfilled to the penny and to the hour.
But this man didn't believe. This man rejected the word of
God. And when you reject the Bible,
when you reject the word of God, you know you can't be saved.
Why? Because you can only be saved
through faith. And the New Testament says faith
cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
You reject the word of God. If you don't believe the word of
God, then you won't be saved. But before you condemn this man
too hard, I wonder how many people are in the same position
today. God has given His word to you
and to me that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved. But perhaps you're sitting here
this morning and you haven't done that.
Perhaps you're a little bit like this man in the gate who just
won't believe the preacher. And this man refused the work of
God. In verse 2, he said that he
would believe what would happen if God made windows in heaven.
Well, you know, bless this poor fool's heart, he didn't know the
Lord has made windows in heaven in the past.
If you go right back to the first book of the Bible, we're
told in Genesis 7, in the 6th, 100th year of Noah's life, in
the second month, in the 17th day of the month, the same day
where all the fountains of the great deep broken up and the
windows of heaven were opened. And you go to other passages as
well. You go to Malachi also and read
about the windows of heaven. This man could not receive what
God wanted to give him because he wouldn't believe.
There's a thief called unbelief. And why do we call unbelief a
thief? Because unbelief will rob you of
your soul. It'll rob you of God's
salvation. It'll rob you of an eternity
with the Lord. Instead of receiving the
blessing of God, this man fell under the judgement of God.
Verse 17. And the king appointed the Lord
on whose hand he leaned, the same man, to have the charge of
the gate. So this man who didn't believe
that all of a sudden food would be available tomorrow, that the
king providentially puts him in charge of the gate.
Now the people in the city, they hear that there's food out there
in those tents. And of course, as thousands, 10s
of thousands of people are now wanting to storm out that gate,
you can imagine this one little bureaucrat standing there just a
minute. And what happened?
They stampled upon him. The people trod upon him in the
gate and he died. As the man of God had said, who
spake when the king came down to him, The man who didn't believe,
think about it, was trampled to death by the multitudes who did.
And so if you're here this morning and you don't believe
there's a heaven, or if you don't want to go to heaven, then
my only message to you is step out of my way, because I'm on my
way. And that's where I'm going.
I've got my eyes upon glory. You're welcome to come too.
In fact, I beseech you, and I plead with you even to come this
morning and receive Christ as your Saviour.
If you're starving for salvation, if you're longing for
the love of Christ, if you want that gift of eternal life, if
you want to know the joy of salvation, a joy you've never,
ever had until this day, then don't leave this meeting without
Christ because you're invited to go from famine to feast, from
starvation to salvation. But you've got to come by faith.
These lepers stepped out by faith.
The crowds went through those gates by faith, for by grace are
you saved through faith. When you come this morning to
Christ and place your faith in Him, we're thinking about the
harvest. You can think about the faith a
farmer has. He plants that seed in the
ground and he has faith that it'll grow into whatever crop he
has planted. Will you have enough faith?
Even the faith has a grain of mustard seed this morning to
come and trust in Christ for the salvation of your soul for Jesus
sake, Amen. Let's bow together in prayer our
gracious God and eternal Father in heaven.
Lord, we thank you this morning for this Old Testament passage
of Scripture. Lord, there's much in it, and
we've gone over it very quickly this morning.
But Father, we pray that you'll bless that word to every heart.
We thank you for the faith of these lepers.
And Lord, we pray that every one of us in this meeting this
morning would be full of faith in the Holy Ghost.
Lord, may no one leave this morning without that knowledge
of sins forgiven and eternal life in Christ.
Come this morning. And Lord, grant fruit, grant
indeed a harvest to the gospel. We pray for Jesus sake.
Amen.