Welcome to the Sunday evening service at Bible Baptist Church in Hampton, Georgia, where Pastor Lauren Regeer opens God's Word each week to provide us with biblically based teaching that helps you meet life head on. Thank you for joining us and may your hearts be blessed as God's Word is taught. And now here is Pastor Lauren Regeer. We are in the evenings. For those that are following such things, we are taking time to study the The Miracles of Elisha. So I invite your attention tonight to 2 Kings, please. 2 Kings chapter 6. We'll begin reading in verse 8. 2 Kings chapter 6 and verse 8. The Miracles of Elisha. The end of our time together around the Lord's table. We'll take a special offering for a lady by the name of Latricia Grimes. She is the parent of one of our students who is in the Bridge to Hope program, Tiana, who is coming here this year on the benevolence of you folks, really, and she is a product of our bus route. Her mother is going through some tremendous challenges, both health and spiritual, and we want to just help her as a Deacons Fund offering tonight after. I wanted to give you just a little bit of a heads up about that. I trust you can be a blessing to this woman who is in desperate need, really. Let's open with a word of prayer. Father, thank you for the privilege of studying a man of God who was used by God to accomplish great things in a very difficult season, time, historically. We're grateful for men of God in every era who stand up for you in difficult times. We're grateful. It is a treasure to know a prophet of God, to one who proclaims without... I thank you for man that cut it straight from embarrassment the truth of scripture as it's brought to us. Lord, I thank you for man that cut it straight. And I pray that, Lord, you give us that spirit in a very difficult day of our own. And I pray that we would be faithful to you in spite of whatever happens. Thank you for this word tonight from your precious book. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's read the story, shall we? Beginning in verse 8 of 2 Kings chapter 6. It's wonderful. It's intriguing, really. The things God called Elisha to do, just simply fascinating. The king of Syria is warred against Israel and took counsel with his servants, his military leader saying, in such and such a place shall be my camp. This is a strategy to attack the people of God, especially the northern tribes of Israel. And the man of God, that would be Elisha, sent unto the king of Israel saying, beware that thou pass not such a place, for thither the Syrians are come down. In other words, he was sending a message that was divinely given to him by God to thwart the plans of the enemy, the Syrians. And the king of Israel sent to the place to which the man of God told him, warned him of, and saved himself there not once or twice. In other words, many times this really divine espionage, if you want to call it that, worked to the advantage of Israel. Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore, troubled for this thing. He called his servants and said unto them, will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel? He suspected someone in his own camp was really providing information to the king of Israel because he couldn't seem to get his troops in the right place at the right time to run a successful attack. And one of his servants in this meeting said, none, my Lord, O King, but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel. Tell it the King of Israel, the words that thou speakest in thy mouth, send and fetch him. And it was told him. And he said, go spy and see where he is that I might send, that I might send and fetch him. And it was told him saying, behold, he's in Dothan. And therefore he sent through their horses and chariots, a great company, or a host of soldiers. And they came by night and compassed the city about. They surrounded the town of Dothan where Elisha and his servant was. And the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth. Behold, a host compassed the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master, how shall we go? Or how shall we do? And he answered, I love this text, fear not for they that be with us, I hope you have this underlined in your Bible, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, said, Lord, I pray thee open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, what did he see? Behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about. The servant of God, the spy from heaven, right? Elisha. And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the Lord and said, smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness, the whole army. According to the word of Elisha, Elisha said unto them, I think God has a sense of humor when I read this verse. This is not the way, he said, neither is this the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek. Of course, he was speaking to them personally, but they couldn't see him. They were blind. He led them to Samaria, which was 10 to 12 miles away. This is an interesting scene if you think about it. The man of God, perhaps his servant, leading an entire host of Syrians who are blind, feeling their way along for 10 miles. It came to pass when they come into Syria that Elisha said, Lord, open now the eyes of these men that they may see. The Lord opened their eyes and when they saw, behold, they were in the midst of Samaria, the capital of Israel. The very place, the last place in all the world they wanted to be. And there they were captive inside the city. The king of Israel got quite Excited about that, verse 21, and he said unto Elisha when he saw them, my father, shall I smite them? Shall I smite them? They're an easy prey, aren't they? They're captured, surrounded. And he answered, thou shalt not smite them. Wouldest thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive with thy sword and thy bow, set bread and water before them that they may eat and drink and go to their master. And he prepared a great provision for them. And when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away and they went to their master back to Syria. So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel for a great while." What a great text. There are kind of some unnamed players in the text. I want to tell you who they are. Hadad II was the king of Syria, not a Syria. Of course, the capital of Syria was Damascus. Israel occupied the northern territories. And so these enemies were just to the northeast of Israel. And they were arch enemies of Israel. The Syrians were certainly coming in from time to time, especially in the springtime when the crops got ready for harvest. They would come and decimate the crops and just kind of try to act like they were the biggest bully in the playground and kick sand in the face. of the land of Israel. They just wanted to really assume authority and shove their weight around and let them know that we want to subjugate you and we're here and you're not as big as us and you're as powerful as us. We're going to eat your food and take many of your people into captivity as our slaves and we want to tax what you have. And so this ongoing battle was the scene, the setting And so here, the king, this is Joram, the king of Israel, is Ahab's son. And Joram would reign from 852 to 840 BC, or about 8 to 12 years, really, when you add the part of time he co-reigned with his father. And his reign was, again, 80 years before the country of Israel would be taken into captivity. Just a little history here of the setting of our text tonight. Assyria is growing in power and prominence and soon, within 80 years, would come and they would destroy the land. They would take the land of Israel captive to Assyria. But the countries really that have momentum and traction, so to speak, militarily at this time were Syria, Egypt, Moab, Israel, and Judah. And they're always aligning themselves and realigning themselves for power. And they're really configuring their alliances in order that they might stand against each other. Israel's fighting against Judah. It's a mess. politically. And so Syria is forcing her way into the mindset and the borders of Israel. Jehoram, as he's called, a couple names, was an evil king. In fact, of the 19 kings in Israel, guess how many good kings there were? Eight families, 19 kings. How many were good kings in the northern country of Israel? How many do you think? How many good kings? Zero. Somebody said none. What a legacy, right? In fact, it wouldn't be too long, as I mentioned, a few years, eight decades, and when Assyria would finally assume the greatest power in the region and lead Israel into captivity. We would not hear much more from those 10 northern tribes. God knows where they are. Well, the Syrian king, Ben-Hadad, is running small-scale operation raids against Israel. Not only, as I mentioned, to secure and obtain materials, food, crops, and riches, but to remind Israel who is really boss in that area. A price that was paid for this neighbor and their spirit against Israel. Well, we don't know if the chronology of all these stories are as they're laid out in the Bible, but there is another unnamed character in our story, in our narrative, and he's a servant of Elisha. Now, we know the name of one of those servants. What was his name? Gehazi. What happened to him? I feel like you're a Sunday school class today because you're all saying, what happened to Gehazi? Remember Naaman? It was the story, of course, the account is in chapter five. He, of course, got greedy, didn't he? Naaman came, was healed in the river Jordan and went home and offered all these prizes and all this money. And of course, Elisha said, no, thank you. It was God's doing and I don't want to take a part and take the glory so you can go on home with all your stuff. But Gehazi got eyes full of greed and he tracked him down. he got leprosy. And so there's an unnamed servant here. It's perhaps a new servant. We know that he's young. The Bible tells us that. And I don't know that he has been around Elisha for all the miracles. Certainly if he's a new hire or a new employee there, he hasn't been around this man all that long, but he will see a great participant in this exciting narrative. Well, you notice that's the setting. I wanted to set you up with a historical setting. Things are bad between Israel and between Judah. There, in fact, would be divided kingdom for 200 years. And here we are where Israel is positioning itself against Judah, Judah against Israel, and then Syria is playing its part in attacking the flanks. of the northern tribes in Israel, and it's a mess. The king does not love the Lord. He's not spiritual. and these raids were really bothering the land. It says not once or twice, but there's this ongoing onslaught of the enemy. Well, I want you to notice not only the setting, but the security breach caused by the preacher. The security breach caused by the prophet Elisha. I just, sometimes I read the Bible and I say, Lord, how do you think? It's amazing to me how God does what he does, but for some reason God thought he would run interference with these plans of the Syrian mobs that would come down. and the marauding bands and he just thought that he was going to give secret information right to the prophet of all people. And so as these plans develop, the enemy, what Elisha would do is of course God would give him this, they're going to come down this mountain or between that valley and that mountain and so you've got to move your troops so you don't get attacked. And so every time Syria would come down and get ready to attack, strategically God would have the army already moved out of the way. And so the intermediary in all this was, of all people, the prophet. What a job for a prophet who is a spy, part-time spy, and God is feeding him inside information. Well, this irritates, verse 10, it irritates the king, excuse me, it irritates the king of Syria, verse 11, therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled. You ever been sore troubled? Ever been in the wrong place? At the wrong time? Well, every time he tried to move his troops, this thing would just blow up in his face and there'd be nobody to fight. And his plans fell apart. And so he called a high-level executive meeting with his military commanders and leaders. And he begins to give them the business, so to speak. Somebody in this room is a snitch. None of you guys are leaving class today until we find out who wrote that. No, he gets his class together and he says, we need to find out who is disloyal among us. And I'm not moving and I'm not leaving until we find out who it is. There's a lot of surprises in this text to me, but there's a There's this interesting scenario of this meeting that he calls, and there's quiet. I'm sure it gets pretty quiet. Have you ever been in one of these meetings where one of you among us is a spy? Who is it? Finally, a hand goes up, I imagine somewhere in the back, a sheepish little fellow, and he raises his hand and says, I think I know who it is. The text is interesting. One of his servants said, verse 12, "'None of us, my lord, the king, but Elisha.'" The prophet that is in Israel is telling the king of Israel the words that you speak even in your bedchamber. Did you know something? The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. His ear hears every word you speak, no matter where you are. It's amazing. There's nowhere to hide from God. And so this man, I do not, one of the, why do you suppose this man knew, knew about Elisha? Why do you suppose that's true? Why did this man have an inkling that the problem in this military strategy, the problem was the prophet? How do you suppose it was that this man thought of Elisha and offered him as a suggestion as the true spy in all of this? Anybody have a thought about that? You can just raise your hand. I don't have any money to give you, but I can give you a gold star or something. What do you think? There's a surprise to me in all of this. I think the first surprise, while you're thinking, is that God cares to protect His sinful people anyway, or at any rate. Why would God stop the enemy from attacking a people, Israel, that were way out of the will of God? That's a surprise to me, but God still loves us even though we're going astray. That's a surprise in the text. Why do you think this man offered Elisha as a potential spy in the process? Anybody have an idea? Think back in the context, Elisha's already been instrumental, hasn't he? Remember the miracle of the ditches and the Moabites that came in and that great victory against the Moabites? Elisha was a great patriot. He wanted the people of Israel to succeed militarily. He was invested in the process, so he already had a little bit of a reputation as being a military mind. There's another thought, and think in terms of what a prophet in those days was privy to. What does the Bible say about secret things? Who do they belong to? Secret things belong to the Lord. And God, if anyone in this narrative, and he is in every narrative of the Bible, God is a player, right? God is a participant in this. God cares. And so this man who knew That Elisha was connected to the heart of God said this. I bet you that Elisha has a part to play in this. I bet you that Elisha, the prophet, is feeding information to the king and moving his troops in order that we have no success at all. That's a big surprise to me, number one, that God cares to protect His people all, and that God speaks to those, both those who belong to Him, Elisha, and those that don't belong to Him, Syria. Do you know God has a way to speak? He spoke to this young man, or man that raised his hand and said, I think I know who it is. God probably gave him that inclination, and God spoke assertedly to Elisha, gave him the plans of the enemy. God is speaking in both camps. I think it's important to remember that even when you pray for the state senators, it may not know the Lord. Proverbs 21 says, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. As rivers of water, he turneth it whithersoever he will. That's why our prayers for those in power over us have great merit, essential. God can direct or overrule the plans, and I'm so glad about this bill. Keep praying about that. The strongest bill to protect the unborn that has ever come across the governor's desk is still there. We're waiting for great things to happen, but it's come along one by one vote. I hope you're praying that God is working even in the hearts of those that don't know Him. There's another surprise that catches my attention, not only that God is speaking to the enemy camp, that God is protecting the straying Israelites, but there's a third thing that surprises me, and it is that the one who is spying on the enemy is spied on by the enemy. Now you say, Pastor, what's so surprising? That happens all the time. There's counterintelligence. There is spies working for nations around us. I'm sure they're among us. Who knows? Hopefully, I don't know if they're here tonight. But there's people always working, aren't there, as secret operatives. And you say, what's so surprising that the one who spies, Elisha, God has given him this divine insight about troop movements. What's so amazing or surprising that God would allow Elisha to be spied on? The text says the king sent spies then to Dothan to spy on Elisha. Why do you think that's a surprise? It's a surprise to me because you would think that God would just be working solely on one side of the fence, so to speak. In other words, if God was telling Elisha where the troops of Syria were in order to protect Israel, why in the world would God allow a spy to come in from Syria, find out his location, and then at night surround that city? Wouldn't you think that God Now just follow this. Wouldn't you think that God who's been telling Elisha about the troop movements of Syria would tell Elisha in the same kind of night dream or vision, Elisha, those troops are moving towards Dothan. You and your servant get out of Dodge. Doesn't that make sense? If God is protecting His people, why not protect His prophet by saying, Elisha, they're coming at night. They're stealing. They're coming this way. I've been giving you exact information about their movements, but for some reason God allows Dothan to be surrounded by the enemy. That's a surprise to me. You would think God would have made it easy. Just go ahead. Get away from there. Move. Elisha, they're coming. Find a place to hide. But he doesn't. So surprise one is that God protects Israel who are out of fellowship with God. Secondly, God informs the enemy who is spying on them by saying it's Elisha. And the enemy has no relationship with God at all. Serious. And then the third surprise is God exposes Elisha to danger, entrapment, and capture. And Elisha, of all people, has a close relationship with God. I scratch my head sometimes and I wonder, what are you doing? Have you ever done that? Lord, what are you doing? None of these things really make a lot of sense to me. Romans 11, 33 says, Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom of knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments and his ways are what? past finding out. Psalm 145, three, great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. Psalm 92, five, thy thoughts are very deep. Isaiah 40, 28, his understanding is unsearchable. Aren't you glad that God is bigger than you are? Aren't you glad that his ways are deeper than yours? I am. You see, God, even though we can't understand His ways, is working all things together for what? Our good, His glory. Are you going through a time where you're scratching your head and saying, God, what are you doing right now? What are you doing? You know and you can be assured that God is working both on this side of the ledger, by that I mean He's working in His church, the bride. He's also working in the hearts of the unsaved kings of the nations around us. God's plan is marching on perfectly. Amen? It is. We need to be those who are holding tightly to his hand, he says in Isaiah 55, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts, my ways higher than your ways. God, why are you doing this? That was certainly the thought of the unknown servant who came out in the morning after he had his coffee. I'm sure it wasn't Starbucks, but he came out and he was surrounded all sides of the city and he begins to shout out Lord, you've been protecting us up until now." Is that true? Well, this young man certainly thought his number was up, and he runs back in with this shout of what? We get down to the text, and we see that verse 15, right? And the servant of the man of God was risen early, went forth to hold the host, the soldiers, the Syrians, surrounded. I saw a bumper sticker on a truck this week that I was following. It simply said this, and there I was, surrounded, dot, dot, dot. Here he was, surrounded, dot, dot, dot. Well, I'm glad we have the rest of the story. Both of the horses and chariots. It's bad enough. It's a bad day when horses and soldiers, but they've got chariots too. And his servants said, where have we heard these kind of words before? Alas, my master, how shall we do? I'd say the same thing. What in the world? He began to run in circles and scream and shout, just like most Christians do when they get surrounded by troubles, right? Alas, we used a word this morning, woe is me. Alas, my master. I love the third principle in our text tonight is safety is assured by our vision or clear vision of God. Think of Isaiah this morning. His world too was falling apart politically, religiously, spiritually. He comes to the temple and he has a fresh vision of who God is. And Elisha, Don't you just really thank God for Elisha, always walking, I say always, most of the time walking, relationship with the Lord where he wasn't afraid. I'm sometimes surrounded by things, are you? There's worries that I have. I mean, I've got my list of worries, don't you? You're looking at me like you're awful spiritual right now. We all do. And he walked out there and I'm sure he dropped his jaw and probably forgot his coffee as he looked around and everywhere he heard the snort of horses, he saw the armament, and he saw the chariots positioning and staging themselves around the little town of Dothan. And he runs back in as fast as little legs can carry him and says, Elisha, something's gone wrong with God's plan because this isn't supposed to happen. Do you think that God up in heaven was panicked? Do you think that God is ever worried? Has it ever occurred to you that nothing has ever occurred to God? I like that statement. God is not afraid. He's not worried. And here we see that there is this wonderful prayer from Elisha the prophet. And the first thing he does is, verse 16, he answers. I love this. He's speaking for God as a prophet. Fear not. Settle down. For they that be with us, what a wonderful thought this is, are more than they that be with them. And I'm sure, I'm sure that prophet, that prophet's servant scratched his head and said, Elisha, are you going batty? Can you see what I'm seeing? Look, look behind my shoulder, we're surrounded. And he says, no, settle down. I just know a thing that greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. Your view of God is the most settling force in your life. Your thoughts about who God is and His ability to sustain you not only on sunshiny days but also on the days when the rain is falling and the enemies are surrounding you is the most important thing in all your life. The just shall do what? Live by fear? The just shall live by faith. Do you know that God has got all this under control, whatever this is? The prophet prays for God to perform a miracle of sight for one fearful man who had no concept of the power of God in the face of a trial. Verse 15, he says, Alas, my master. We've heard that a few times in 2 Kings chapter 6 when the borrowed axe head floated or floated, sunk to the bottom of the river. That little servant, that prophet, came running to the prophet and said, listen, alas, my master, for it is borrowed. And have you ever said that to the Lord? I don't believe it. Mary Magdalene said this, alas, oh no, woe upon woe, they've taken away the Lord's body and we don't know where they've put him. Alas, I've said it myself, on a stormy sea the disciples came to the Lord and said, don't you even care? Alas, Master, wake up. Don't you care that we perish? Alas, Lord, said the servant, we are now surrounded both with chariots and with horses, a double trouble. They were surrounding Elisha and Dothan was closed in. What the enemy forgot, conveniently, is that the same God who was able to listen in on their secret strategies was also able to defend His people. Have you forgotten that God has conquered sin, death, and hell and everything else is in His power as well? Do you think there's a challenge in your life that God is too small to handle? Well, this is a faith stretcher right here. It is. They are locked on the horns of a dilemma. And somehow, during the night, the Syrians had surrounded the sleepy town of Dothan, isolated it. It was a little town 12 miles from Samaria to the south, a capital. Spiritually, it was separated from God, too. The key verse of this whole book, 2 Kings, is this, for the children of Israel walked in The ways of the sins of Jeroboam, the idolater which he did, they did not depart from them until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight as he had said by all of his prophets." That's the theme of 2 Kings. This is a country that is not listening to the prophets. It is not following God. It's in love with all the idols. And yet, are you ready for the conclusion? I am. I can't wait to get to the end of this story. You know the end of it. We read it. But I just think, what we're going to see is mercy in the extreme. Get ready for grace to appear. The reason God let them be surrounded was that He was going to put His glory and grace on display. The reason you're surrounded with a protracted trial, with an insurmountable difficulty is because he wants to put his grace and his glory on display. Surrounded by the Syrians, sinning and straying from God, singled out for destruction, God begins to work a miracle of silence. Jesus comes for mercy, and yet, in loving kindness, Jesus comes. And so he prays, and here's what he prays. Lord, I pray thee, if you get us out of this mess, I'll go to church three times a week. No. Lord, if you just get us through this and bring us some relief and save our poor souls, then Lord, I'm gonna tithe at least 11% for a while. No. He prays what we all ought to pray. Lord, would you please open his eyes that he may see Some of you might ought to pray this. Not that you need grandiose visions of the unseen world, but you need to see God. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and what did he see? He looked at the mountains around Dothan, and they were full of horses and chariots But they were horses and chariots of another nature, of fire, round about Elisha." I think that's interesting that the Lord ties this army to his servant. It doesn't say they're round about Dothan or round about the timid prophet's servant, but they're around the prophet just attending angels there. They're always there around the servants of the Lord, and then Here's what he prays, not for deliverance, but vision. He prays, give my servant sight, verse 17. He prays then, give the enemy's blindness, close their eyes, verse 18. And then, verse 20, he has, after he trucks them all down to the town of Samaria, he says, open their eyes. Great lessons here. The servant's spiritual eyes are opened. And he sees that greater is he that is in us, or around us, than he that is in the world. God has not forsaken us. though they have forgotten Him. God is not powerless, though the enemy is gaining strength. God is not threatened by the odds or the numbers. God's forces are always greater. Sometimes we forget that. Your safety is not in numbers or horses anyway. Your safety is in reliance upon the Lord. It is, dear friend, it is. You are strongest when you are most humble, prone before the Lord on your knees, asking for His power and strength in your life. Well, the servant's eyes were opened, he saw the real deal. Army standing guard, the innumerable host, the heavenly host, standing guard, these guardian angels ready to the beck and call of God Himself. What a scene. I see this as mercy on display as here comes probably by himself, Elisha went out to meet this blinded army. And I think it's a little humorous what he said. He says, listen, I don't know exactly who you're looking for, but I think his name might be Elisha the prophet. I'll take you to, he's not here. I'll take you to where you captives and slaves now to this voice. You follow us. So they're blind, they're confused, they're disoriented. Of course, they're captives and slaves now to this voice in front of them who promises to lead them to the one who's blinded them. And so they are in a big procession. The Bible doesn't tell us how many are there, but there's got to be a big host enough army to surround the city. And so he takes them by the hand. One man, I picture this one man. in the mid-afternoon sun, or maybe morning sun still, he got up early and this all happened, and he's taking them by the hand, and he's leading them a day's journey, this whole army with their horses and chariots in slow motion, and I'm sure, this is the home. This area is the home of Elisha and he's leading this whole army, blinded army, captive. There's a picture there of Jesus leading captivity captive. But he's walking along a familiar path that goes from Dothan to Samaria, the capital city. He's probably whistling a tune. Waving at his neighbors, hey, look at me. I got the whole army. You guys try to get, you're having no success. He's just smiling as he's taking these guys all the way, and finally, they don't know where they're going, but they get inside the city gates of Samaria, and then he prays, Lord, open their eyes. So there's the, this is really a miracle of sight, right? Lord, help my spiritually blind servant to see, and he does. Then he prays, Lord, help the army physically not to see, and they're blinded, and then he opens their eyes. Miracle and triplicate, really. And there they are, standing, eyes wide open, captured, really, by the surroundings and the city. And the king, the king, Jehoram, begins to be very excited, right? Shall I smite them? Verse 21. Shall I smite them? What a day! Thank you, Elisha. And Elisha says, no, you wouldn't do that with your captive army that you capture and bring home as slaves. Don't do that now. We've brought them as, really, slaves of mercy. We've opened their eyes. I want you to feed them. I want you to feed them. And a great banquet is prepared. And do you know sometimes you can send a stronger message with mercy than you can ever send with anger? And the Bible says they did not for a long time return to attack Israel. What a merciful act that was. When they should have, could have been slain, God through the prophet Elisha spares every one of them. What do you think they must have said as they returned to their homes and families? They realized what? That their life had been spared by the mercy, the merciful God and prophet in Israel. And as they went home, they must have said, what kind of God is that? Amen. What kind of God is that? That would blind us, lead us to this place and then feed us with food after our eyes are open and then release us one day. We get to go home. We who deserve hell because of our sinfulness, our proneness to sin. And we will come and we'll hold the hands of the one who died in our place and we'll say, what kind of God is this? It would take a captive slave and open his eyes to the truth. Mercifully stand in the place of the sin, debt, Pay it, sin death I owed, and die for me. What a picture there is in this miracle of Elisha of the great grace of God. Thank you for joining us today. Please tune in each week for new messages from Pastor Lorne Regeer at Bible Baptist Church in Hampton, Georgia. Until next time, may the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you.