Fit to the lyrics. It's that one. 2 Kings 4 and our study verses are 38 to 41. Now I'm gonna spoil it for you. I'm gonna tell you exactly how I'm going to interpret this passage at the start. So we get everything clear. Pot of death, the stew that is bitter or poisonous, represents the law of God to sinful mankind. You see, they say, man of God, there is death in the pot. It is death to mankind because of the fall. You may say, surely the law of God is good. Not death, absolutely the law of God is good, if we kept it. But we can't keep it, because of Adam's fall, now we are riddled with original sin. And so the law of God, that perfect standard, can only be to us a judgment, a death. Paul actually calls the moral law the Ten Commandments. In Romans chapter eight, I believe he calls them the law of sin and death. Again, not because they are wrong, not because the law is sinful, but to a sinful person, the law of God, which demands perfection, can only mean judgment, condemnation, and curse, because we will break it. Do you see? Then in our passage in verse 41, Elisha sprinkles flour in this stew, in this pot of death. Now there's nothing in the flour. It's not some special herbal remedy that he's concocted in his wizardry. It's just normal flour. But this is a miracle of God. And as he sprinkles the flour in, he overturns the curse And he brings a blessing. You see, there was famine at the time. We're gonna look into all this in much more detail, but there was famine. That means they were hungry. They needed that stew. And Elisha overturns this curse, and he brings a blessing by the power of God, a life-giving blessing, a life-sustaining blessing. Now, who do we think the Lord Jesus Christ is representing? Who do we think Elisha is representing? Double spoiled it there for you. The Lord Jesus Christ. He comes, what does he say in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 17, which Tony must have preached on recently? I did not come to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. You see, into the law and the prophets, the flower, which is, as it were, the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ is sprinkled. And through his fulfilling the law, through his dying for our sins, God's word is no longer a curse to us. Christian, to us, God's word is only a blessing. There is no more curse. There is only salvation. life-giving, sustaining blessing. So we have two points. The first point, death in the pot. Look at verse 38. Elisha returned to Gilgal. Now, I've preached this in a series in Charlesworth, and Elisha has just, in the verses before, given a son by the power of God through birth, of course, to a woman who appears to be barren. And then that son, in due time, has died. And then that woman has gone to Elisha knowing that he is the only one who can help her and sought his assistance. He raises that son. And after this, it says in verse 38, Elisha returned to Gilgal and there was a famine in the land. The sons of the prophets were sitting before him. Now, Elisha is, as it were, if you like, the head, the president of a seminary, or the head of teaching at the seminary of Gilgal. These sons of the prophets were students. They were learning from him. They were sitting at his feet. Where do you hear that before? When Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus. Remember that passage, and Martha is rushing around? Mary is sitting at his feet. This is an expression for learning from him, hearing his teaching. So, He says to his servant, put on the large pot and boil stew for the sons of the prophets. So it says one went out into the field. I'm not sure if that is the servant or if the servant sends one of the sons of the prophets or whoever, I'm not sure it matters that much. But they gather herbs and they found a wild vine and gathered from it a lap full of wild gourds. Now Matthew Paul says this about the wild gourds. that it was a plant called cola quintida, whose gourds or leaves resemble the leaves of a vine and are very bitter and pernicious to the eater. Now, if you know what gourds are, good on you. I didn't until I searched them up. They're kind of in the pumpkin family and they grow on vines and they look a bit like that. So they're not leaves, they are significant things. You'd see them and you might think, yeah, That'll be nutritious. Now, of course, remember, there's a famine in the land. So there isn't a plethora of food. So he's getting anything he can find. I'm not sure this is carelessness, it's desperation. Seeking out anything to put in the stew. And this man gets it, comes back with it. And they sliced them into the pot of stew. And they didn't know what they were. Then they served it to the men to eat. And as they were eating the stew, they cried out and said, man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat it. Now, the way that the passage is laid out leads me to suspect that this isn't a cry out, we're going to die now. Because when Elisha fixes the stew, it doesn't have anything about that being healed. But rather, I think they could taste that the stew was bitter or poisonous, or if they ate it all, they would have some serious problems, which is actually the case for this plant, cholinquintida. The gourds of it are bitter and pernicious, but you're not going to die if you smell it, you know. So they cry out, and they could not eat it. Now, there was a famine in the land. This is probably the same famine that is listed in 2 Kings chapter 8 and verse 1. Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life. That's the woman in the passage just before the one we were reading. Saying, arise and go, you and your household, and stay wherever you can, for the Lord has called for a famine. And furthermore, it will come upon the land for seven years. You see, sometimes famines may not be a particular targeted judgment of God if they happen in what we might call confessionally His ordinary providence. But this famine was called for by God, again His words. He calls for the curse upon the land. Why? Because the Israelites had been sinful, particularly their king was living in sin. And so if we take the famine in our passage, which it is generally agreed is the same famine, it was called by God, and it was there to punish the Israelites for their sin. This makes sense to us in a way, this is what we do. If someone goes out and commits a crime and they're found and they're captured, and liberties are taken off them, their freedom to roam is taken off them, they're in a prison, their freedom to have nice food is taken off them, or I hope it is, They're not allowed to do things that they were before. They're being punished. Well, in a sense, that is what is happening here. God's covenant with Israel is that if they break his covenant, he will bring punishments upon them. And so God is punishing the Israelites. This famine being directly called by God is similar to the famine that you see with Elijah that he tells Ahab about in first Kings 17 and verse one. Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead said to Ahab, as the Lord God of Israel lives, the form who I before whom I stand there shall not be due nor reign these years except at my word. A reason isn't given there, but if you cast your eyes back one, two verses into verse 33 of chapter 16, it says this, and Ahab made a wooden image. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. Why was there a famine? Ahab was provoking God to anger more than all the kings who were before him. And you can read in 2 Kings 3 verse 1 to 3 that his son, Jehoram, who was on the throne in 2 Kings 4, the passage we're reading, the death in the pot passage, he followed in the footsteps of his father. So the land was under a curse, and the people, therefore, were under a curse. But more than this, The earth generally then and now, and the people in it, are under the curse of God from the beginning of Genesis chapter 3. We know that Adam and Eve did not keep the law. They did not keep that covenant that God made with Adam, whereby if he'd kept it, Romans 5, he would have lived. There would have been eternal life for him and all his descendants. But if he broke it, there would be death for him and all his descendants. And we see in Genesis chapter three and verse 17, then God said to Adam, because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you saying, you shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return. So they're under a famine because of their sin. But why were these gods poisonous? Why is there anything poisonous in the world? Were there poisonous things in the Garden of Eden? What do you think? No. Perfect, in the last time I read, perfect. No poison, no death. This is a result of the curse that God brought on the world, well, on the world and on Adam and his descendants because of Adam's sin. It was God's word that brought this famine and it was God's word that cursed the ground and made the gourds poisonous. In a sense, God had through his pronouncements brought these men to this point where they cry out, there is death in the pond. God's word has brought bitterness and death upon these men. We need to be careful that we don't go out telling the world that God's word to them is nothing but life and goodness. It is if they repent and believe. But if they remain in sin, it will be their judgment. Why does God pronounce these curses? Again, because of sin. The curse in Genesis 3 came because of sin. The famine in our passage came because of sin. And this all applies to us too. We are by nature, without Christ, if we have no forgiveness, we are under the curse of God. He condemns us under his law. We're in Adam. We are culpable in a sense for his sin and his degeneracy passes to us and we have committed actual sins on our own account that without forgiveness will lead us to judgment. God does not have it in for humanity. People sometimes think this that when they read the scriptures or they hear the gospel, God seems to have it in for humanity. No, humanity has it in for God. Rebellion, sin, wickedness. What choice do we leave him? Even treachery. He is our creator. We owe him our lives. And yet, we live in treachery and sin. So because of sin, in our passage, the ground and the land are cursed. The people are living under the curse of God. And in this passage, the sons of the prophets, they are hungry because of the famine. Now, I don't know if you've ever been really hungry for an extended period of time. I haven't, but it sounds awful. Hungry when you go to bed. Hungry when you wake up in the morning. Hungry throughout the day. And then hungry when you go to bed. And hungry when you wake up in the morning. and your hunger is never truly satiated. That is a miserable existence. This is a basic need that we have, but it is not being met. There were no shops, there were no restaurants, there were no fridges, and if there were, they would have been empty. No fruit really on the trees, except when they do find it like these wild gourds, they jump at it and start putting it in their stews, not knowing what it is. This is a picture of God's judgment. This is a small picture of the great judgment that shall reach all those in eternity who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. We know suffering from this world, some here more than others. But that suffering is just a warning, just a picture. There is a greater judgment than is found in this life waiting for the wicked. And we shall be judged when we die or when Christ comes again. And we shall be in a place, if we do not know Christ, that individual will be in a place where the hunger is never satiated. and where the thirst is never slated. God's word to Israel was a curse because of their sin. And so it is by nature with us. We are lawbreakers, rebels, traitors, and without forgiveness, we will receive only curses. God's law is given to us. And if we kept it, it would be for our good. But we cannot keep it. We do not keep it. The word of God, therefore, without Christ, is bitter to us. It would only pronounce death upon us. Romans chapter three speaks of this truth. Verse 19 to 20. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. And in light of that, as we just finished this point, let us read from Matthew chapter five, just to remind ourselves. And if we're Christians, to remind ourselves of what we have been saved from. And if any here are not believers, To striking conviction, we pray the Holy Spirit upon your hearts, that you have not kept the law and you will never keep this law perfectly. There is only salvation in Jesus Christ. Matthew chapter five, verse 21. Listen carefully. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Raka, shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says you fool shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First, be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly. While you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, Pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Which of us is sufficient? Anger without a just cause. Murder. Lusting just in a look. Adultery. The word of God without Christ means death to me and to you. It is bitter like this stew. There is death in the pot. Without Christ, the word of God has no saving grace, it pronounces us unworthy. But praise the Lord, that is not the end of the Bible. Second point, life through the man of God. Now one of the reasons why we're taking the part with death in it, in this spiritual manner is that food is often, in the Bible, equated to spiritual food. What does Jesus say in the desert? Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And there is spiritual famine in this world. Our fridges, most of us, are bursting. Restaurants all over the place, shops, even fruit on the trees. But there is spiritual famine, isn't there? In the midst of this famine, we can find spiritual food, food able to sustain us and grow us and bring us safely into the new kingdom of glory. And this is found in the word of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. We see Elisha, verse 41, says, bring some flour. And he put it in the pot and said, serve it to the people. that they may eat and there was nothing harmful in the pot. He takes that which is deadly to those men and makes it palatable and nutritious. That which would cause them to die and gives them life. He pours flour in and by a miracle of God takes away poisonous attributes of this Jew. This Elisha is able to overturn the curse of God and this is a picture and a type of the Lord Jesus Christ who is able to overturn the curse of God to the elect people of God through their faith in him. Not that he is countering with God, he is God and he has been sent by God to do this and he can overturn that curse. and bring blessing upon us. Through Jesus Christ, we can know the saving blessings of God. Romans chapter three, the verses that we read earlier, just the verses after that, verse 21 to 22a, Paul says, but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed. Being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. Apart from the law, God can be righteous in saving his people. What does it say elsewhere? By this, God can be just and the justifier. The Lord Jesus Christ can take the words of God, which to us without him would be bitter, and he can make them sweet. He can take that judgment which is upon us, and He will take it away and give us His own righteousness. This part of Stu, in our passage, is part of God's curse upon sinners. And as we read the law of the Bible, if we do not have Christ, if there is no forgiveness, we are conscious that we too are cursed of God. But through Christ, We have life. There is a new Elisha. There is one who can overturn God's curse. The flower that Christ adds to the law of God, which comes in curse, is the essential ingredient. What does Jesus add? What does Jesus bring that is different? How is he the Messiah of God? It is himself. His work, His grace, His death, His resurrection, in short, Himself, His gospel, the law of God, is filled and fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Some substances in their pure form will kill you very quickly. If you've read Agatha Christie, I'm sure you will have heard of cyanide. Cyanide in its purest form won't take very much to kill you, but if it is compounded with other elements, it becomes less harmful. The law of God on its own would mean a death sentence for us all. But in Jesus Christ, who is able to fulfill that law, who is able to take our sins for breaking that law, we can have the promise of life and we can have new life in him. With the gospel of Jesus Christ, the law cannot hurt us. Christ brings forgiveness for sins. free, full, and complete forgiveness. Consider the effects of the fall, just some of them. Our sin day by day, our guilt that we feel, the hunger that we feel sometimes, the thirst, the sickness, the weakness, the fear, the persecution that is promised to us, the death that we are anticipating. These are the effects of the curse, but in Christ we have a promise. that they shall all be taken away. In heaven or when He comes again, we shall have all those effects of the curse taken away. But even now, we have great blessing, do we not? Because we have the Word of God. God's Word is nutritious. Bank on His Word. With Christ, it is life to us. be often in the Word. Through Christ and the Spirit, it has the opposite effect of killing us, it restores us. Do you know if you lift weights, I don't know if any of you do, I don't really at the moment, but some of you I'm sure have, perhaps in your younger days, you know that you need protein to restore the muscle. Arnold Schwarzenegger will tell you that. You need the protein. If you work out and don't eat anything, you'll have just broken your muscles and there will be no repair. We need the protein and we go out into the world and we are flexing our spiritual muscles. We are seeking to war against the world. We are seeking to mortify sin. We are seeking to stand for Christ, but it's tiring and it wears us out. Come back to the word. Through the Spirit, it will restore you. And do you know, that's how bodybuilders gain muscle. They break their muscles, and then they have it restored. And thus, we should become bigger, stronger Christians through this process. The Word also refreshes us from the world, the dry, arid world in which we hunger for something more. The Word of God refreshes us like a waterfall on a baking day. It makes us grow bigger and taller in the faith. It gives us the essential vitamins and minerals that we need. If you know what vitamins and minerals do, one of the things is that they boost your immune system. Your immune system is that which basically put, and that's the only way I can put it, help you fight off diseases and bad things that come into your body from outside. The Word inoculates us, not completely, but it helps to inoculate us against the attacks of the devil, against the temptations of the world, against the flesh, which tempts us and the sin which so easily ensnares us. Through Christ sprinkling that flower of himself on the Word of God, the whole scriptures, we see him. All over the place, like Elisha sprinkling that flower in the pot, it would go all through that pot. So the Lord Jesus Christ is present throughout the scriptures. We see him all over the Word of God. He is the essential ingredient. He takes away the curse and the punishment of God for us through faith in him. Let us just consider a few examples. We've already thought of Adam falling, Adam and Eve sinning, curse coming into the world. There's the law, there's the death, there's the despair. What's going to happen to humanity? Even in that moment of curse, what does God say? The seed of the woman shall crush the serpent's head. Is this just an explanation for why men don't like snakes and snakes don't like men? I think not. The Lord Jesus Christ is there. He is the lifeblood. He is the flower that brings the life in that passage to us. Think of Israelites in bondage to the Egyptians. We know that this is a picture of us in bondage to sin. They were enslaved. They were under the yoke. They were whipped. They were worked with an inch of their life. Some of them would have died. They were under bondage. We are under bondage to sin and the devil in our human natures. It has us in its grip. The Lord Jesus Christ frees us. Where do we see him? We see him in the person of Moses. Moses comes out of nowhere, seemingly, and boldly, bravely, effectively, as you have been seeing, the stuttering Moses brings the Israelites out of bondage to the Egyptians. He sets them free. And of course, in him, we see our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who brings life. There is not just bondage and then the end. Bondage and salvation. What about in the desert? When they've been freed and they've been provided with manna and with so many wonderful things and they are grumbling and complaining. Oh, those cucumbers in Egypt were wonderful. Why can't we go back there? Why has this God brought us into this desert? They angered God over and over and eventually, he makes them stay in the wilderness for how long? 40 years. And then they all die and that's it? Well, no, it's not it, is it? God sends Joshua. He raises up Joshua, who by some remarkable feats of physical strength leads the armies, defeating the giants all over the place and the people in Canaan. and brings them into the promised land, this earthly promised land, this wonderful land flowing with milk and honey, so much better than the desert. God doesn't leave them there, but we know that isn't the only thing the passage is saying. This is pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ, who leads us into the heavenly places. Do you see, Christ is to be found throughout the scriptures. He's to be found in the persons of Moses and Joshua. They are types, but Christ is greater. Moses freed the Israelites from an earthly army, an earthly bondage. Jesus frees us from bondage to sin and the devil. Joshua led to an earthly kingdom. Jesus leads us where? Do you know? He leads us somewhere amazing. As Christians, the eternal condemnation of hell does not fill us with crave and fear because we have been freed by our savior. And He will lead us to heaven. He leads us to the place of eternal ages, to the gates of splendor, an unprecedented place of greatness like we could not imagine, eternal, boundless, glorious, tearless, painless, righteous, beyond our greatest imaginings, with the beatific vision as our eternal joy. The blessed vision of the Lord Jesus Christ. He leads us to an unprecedented place. As I'm sure has been commented before from this pulpit, we use in our culture of the world unprecedented too much. COVID is here, unprecedented disease, it's gonna wipe us out. Well, some of us are still here. Unprecedented heat, 28 degrees, don't think of stepping out of your houses. Do you know, on my drive to the Snake Pass, they've now got a little sign which has the fire risk on the Snake Pass and I was driving past it and it was raining and it had the fire risk at extreme. You see, we use the word unprecedented too much. We need to learn wisdom from the Bible. There is nothing new under the sun. Nothing new under the sun. What about above the sun? What about beyond the sun? What about far above the heavens into the heavenly places? That is unprecedented. beyond the sun in this place where we shall no longer be lit by the sun, S-U-N, but our lives, our existences will be filled by the light of the sun, S-O-N. Every crevice of our existence shall be filled with him. Every corner of our being will be fulfilled by him. How we pity the Jews. They fixate on Moses. They fixate on Joshua. Moses is all right. You know, most humble man who ever lived. Joshua is pretty good, relatively speaking to us. But I say Moses is all right because in comparison with Jesus, that is all he is. We follow the Lord Jesus Christ, and he sprinkles a flower of his gospel, of himself, of his work, of his death, of his resurrection, all over the scriptures, and makes it life unto us. Jesus is the one who saves. He is the one who redeems us from the consequences of our sins. And we can read all of God's word without fear. Because it is nothing but a blessing to us. Do we understand the grace that made that possible? That the word of almighty, triune, thrice holy God is only a blessing to us? That is truly remarkable. This is why sermons without Christ are not allowed to so much as show their head in this place. because sermons without Christ are sermons without grace. And so as we close, what must you do if you do not know this Christ? What must you do? Look in our passage, verse 40. They try the stew. Remember, it's the law to sinful human beings. And what do they say? Man of God, there is death in the pot. We need to cry out to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, saying, I cannot keep the law of God. I need your righteousness. I need you to keep it for me. Please save me. Man of God, without you, God's words are death to me. Amen.