Well friends, would you turn in the scriptures to 2 Kings chapter 7 and my text is verses 1 to 2, but we will look at these verses that lead up to these words in chapter 6. So 2 Kings chapter 7 and verses 1 to 2 are my text for this evening. Then Elisha said, Hear the word of the Lord, thus says the Lord. Tomorrow about this time a seer of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seers of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria. So an officer on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, Look, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be? And he said, in fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it. Those are very solemn words. And if you know the rest of the story, we will come to that on another occasion. But the officer who had replied in this way was on the gate duty when the crowds rushed out of the city because of the deliverance that had come. And he is knocked over and he is trampled to death. So these terrible words of judgment came upon him from In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it. Well, we'll come to that a little bit later. Now we have been looking at these events in the life of Elisha. And of course you will know that last time we were considering that great event when the Syrian raiders were blinded from capturing Elisha. And Elisha prays that the Lord would open the eyes of his young man, his young servant, and that he would see and that he saw that the mountain was full of horses of chariots of fire all around Elisha. And God brings about a great victory and triumph over the Syrian raiders. and eventually they're brought, they are struck with blindness and they're taken into Samaria and then their eyes are opened and they realize that they're captured and the king in his enthusiasm wants to slay them, wants a blood bath, but Elisha says, no, give them breakfast and send them on their way. Well, that is very significant and we'll see why that is the case in a moment or two. But it happened after this later, sometime later, that the Ben-Hadad decided to gather the whole of his army and go and besiege Syria, Samaria, sorry, the town of Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom. And this was a great attempt, almost you might say a final attempt, to actually try to destroy the Israelites and to overthrow the city. And the siege went on for a long time and it caused a great famine. rising inflation and a terrible state of poverty and grief which we read about in the story here. An appalling, appalling situation that even led to cannibalism because of the desperate situation that people was in. We can hardly imagine or understand the situation, but here they are in absolute desperation. And nobody could get anything to eat at all. It was a desperate, desperate time indeed. The supplies ran down. There was supreme hunger. And as we saw in verses 24 to 29, this heart-rending account as the king of Israel passes by on the wall and a woman cries out to him and says, what's troubling you? She answered, well, this woman said, give your son that we may eat him today and we'll eat mine tomorrow. and so they kill the first child and eat him and then the following day the woman has hidden her son so that they were going to starve anyway. So it was a heart-rending and desperate, desperate situation and desperately wicked and desperately evil. Well, the king of Israel at this time is wicked King Jehoram. He had a lot of blood on his hand for all kinds of reasons. I haven't gone into all the details, but he was a very bloodthirsty man. He was certainly a pretty godless man, as we have seen in his reaction to Elisha on a number of occasions. And now this situation is so bad that he blames God for the situation, just like people do today. Verse 31, then he said, God do so to me and more also if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat remains on him today. And he takes it out on God's prophet. And of course, later in verse 33, he actually makes a right statement, but his statement is a vindictive one. Surely this calamity is from the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord? Why should I listen to this God of yours, Elisha? Why should I wait for him any longer? If this is the kind of thing God does, But actually, of course, God hadn't done all of this. This was the result of the judgment upon the people and the situation. But Jehoram, this wicked king, he hears of this, he blames God, he becomes angry with Elisha, the prophet. And it may be that he has not forgiven Elisha for letting the Syrians go in the incident we were looking at last week when he said, my father, shall I kill them? And he said, no, give them breakfast and send them on their way. Give them eat and drink, get them on, send them on their way. Why did you let them go? Well, the people saw the king and they saw that he was wearing sackcloth. Now that normally was a sign of repentance, but this was not a sign of repentance in this wicked king. It was an outward sign, but there was no inward grace. He was going through the motions. But here was a nation that had largely, largely renounced allegiance to the living God. These were supposed to be God's people. And here is the king. And what is he saying? Well, he is saying literally what many people say today. How can I believe in a God of love in a situation like this? Look at the state we're in. Look at the terrible state we're in. Murder the prophet. Why should I wait for the Lord any longer? Chapter six, verse 33. There's no hope, there's no point. God has failed us. I can't believe in the God of the Bible anymore. And my friends, that's exactly what people say today, isn't it? In exactly the same way. And people come, don't they? And maybe they read the story of Elisha, and during the time of Elisha, of course, there were more miracles. It was one of the big times in the Old Testament when there were miracles. That didn't continue all the time. Some people today, you know, they say, well, we believe in a Lord God of miracles, and they expect miracles all the time. But that was not the case even in the Bible. There are times when there are specific periods And there were reasons for it where there are maybe a number of miracles. And that was the case in Lycia's time. But it wasn't generally true through the Old Testament. Only at special times and special occasions. And people come sometimes and they say, well, miracles, they're all of the past. They're all myth, they're all legend. I don't believe in miracles. Well, that's the analysis of unbelief. Say a bit more about that in a moment or two. And yet, and yet, into this situation God's promise comes from Elisha. And it is a remarkable promise in a situation which humanly seemed to be utterly, utterly impossible. And this is an illustration to us, an Old Testament illustration. It's more than an illustration. It's a demonstration, an Old Testament demonstration of the absolute sovereignty of God in the situation. This was God's punishment on his disobedient and rebellious people. And wicked King Jehoram spoke the truth when he said, surely this calamity is from the Lord. Yes, it was. Why was it from the Lord? Because of their sin and because of their disobedience. God was in control of the situation. Now that does not make God the author of evil, but it does demonstrate that God is in control of everything. He restrains evil. He overcomes evil. But King Jehoram wasn't prepared to accept that. And he is determined to go out and to silence the prophet. And he sends a messenger, chapter six, verse 32. Elisha is sitting in his house. Elisha is not taken aback by this. In fact, in many ways, Elisha acts in an incredibly, we might say, an incredibly cool manner. He doesn't seem to be worried. He doesn't seem to be bothered. I don't know about you, but if you were the prophet of the Lord and you heard that somebody was coming to take your head off, well, when Elijah found that, of course, you remember he was filled with fear in the days of Ahab and Jezebel and things like that. But Elisha sits in his house with the elders and he says, shut the door and don't let the man in. See how this son of a murderer has sent someone to take away my head. When he comes, shut the door, hold him fast, is not the sound of his master's feet behind him. Let the king come and do his own dirty work. But when he comes, I have a message for him. And it's a message from God. Now, Elisha is not being sarcastic. Don't misunderstand me. If I said that in a rather sarcastic manner, I didn't mean it, forgive me. It wasn't meant to be sarcastic. was meant to show the utter confidence that Elisha has in God in an incredibly difficult and dangerous situation. And in fact, it seems, I know perhaps I'm slightly reading into the passage here, but it seems from the way in which it is described in verse 32, that Elisha was sitting in his house, the elders were sitting with him, they'd gathered together with him. It seems likely, I don't want to stop now, but from other similar occasions when that kind of phraseology is used, that it is quite possible that actually Elisha was holding a prayer meeting. Here was Elisha meeting with the elders of, we don't know which elders they were, whether they were just the elders of Samaria, or whether they were the elders of all the northern tribes, we don't know. But here he is sitting in the house with the elders, they had come for the council of Elisha, and it seems that it's highly likely that in fact he was holding a prayer meeting. The messenger comes. The king follows with his retinue. And yet God gives his gracious promise through Elisha. Chapter seven, verse one, Elisha said, then Elisha said, hear the word of the Lord. Notice this is Elisha's response to the king's comment. Why should I wait for the Lord any longer? Why should I trust this God? And Elisha's response is this, hear the word of the Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah. Thus says the Lord, tomorrow about this time, a seer of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel and two seers of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria. Now, of course, there are some people who come along and say, well, of course, this is a complete reversal and things are going to be so much better and you're going to be able to buy things for a song. Actually, if you understand the measurements here, this is not a total overthrow of the dreadful inflation. It isn't saying, well, of course, things were so expensive before. We are given the details in 25 about the donkey's head being sold for 80 shekels of silver and the five shekels of silver for the dove manure and so on. But this was still not dirt cheap. And if you want to look into the details, well, you can, there are a number of commentaries that will give you the details. I'm not going to stop with it now. But what it was, was a great change. Things would begin to improve. Things would certainly get better. They wouldn't overnight be changed. Well, actually overnight, great things happened as we shall see. But something is going to happen that is that's going to be an incredible change, what we might call a cataclysmic change to the situation. We're not saying the finances will get back to normal, but they will be improved. But the whole thing will be cataclysmic. What is the reaction to this? Verse two, the officer on whose hand the king leaned, the man whom the king trusted. That's the sense, that's the word. It's not that the king was a cripple and he needed to be helped and he was leaning on this man. No, it's a picture of this is the man he trusted. This was his senior advisor. This was his prime minister, we might say. This was his right hand man. That's the sense of the word in the Hebrew there. The officer on who the king leaned. Where does he trust? Where is he leaning? Where is his trust? Where is his confidence? It is not in God. It is on this blasphemous, ungodly, unbelieving officer of his court. And what does this man do? He scoffs. Look, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be? And Elisha says, in fact, you shall see it with your eyes. but you shall not eat of it. Tomorrow, about this time, tomorrow. Things are going to get better. And what do people say to us, don't they? Well, they say, you talk about God and you talk about the fact that things will get better and things will be improved. And you're always talking about the future. And you're always talking about the fact that even if things don't get better in this life, there's a great future waiting. Always talking about the future. What about now? What about the situation we're in? How about something that is relevant to the present situation? Well, my friends, don't we find that's the case, isn't it? That's why I read those words from 2 Peter 3 this evening. That scoffers would come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, saying, where is the promise of his coming? Why keep talking about the future? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willfully forget that by the word of God, the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of water and in the water by which the world that existed then perished, being flooded with water. We'll come back to that in a moment or two. But the point is they scoff. And God does work sometimes cataclysmically. He doesn't always. But he worked cataclysmically when he sent the flood upon the world. A worldwide flood, do you believe that? That's what the Bible says. And the more people look into it, and the more archeology they do, and the more you understand these things, the more it seems so obvious to anybody who's got any measure of common sense. That something happened in this world which produced so many of the things that we see all around us, which can only be explained in terms of a worldwide flood. The Grand Canyon for one. You go to India, as I have been, and you go to the plateau in the southern part of India, and you see these great rock outcrops which cannot have been put there by mankind. They're much bigger than the pyramids and things like that. And they stand there, and there are things balanced on top of them. And they're clear evidence of the result of the flood. It's there for you to see. You can go and see it today. I've seen it with my own eyes. And how do you interpret them? Evidence of the worldwide flood. All the Israelites leaving Egypt and crossing the Red Sea. God acting cataclysmically. All the events of the day of Pentecost when God came down upon his people and 3,000 were saved and then 5,000 and so on. Conversion itself is a cataclysmic change. But the Bible says there's another great change coming, another cataclysmic change coming when the Lord will come again. And Peter refers to that in that passage. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements melt with fervent heat, and so on. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be in holy conduct and godliness? God's word will be fulfilled. And here, Elisha speaks of what we would call a mini-cataclysmic change. Tomorrow, tomorrow. This was a specific promise. God's promises are not random and vague, they are specific. God's promises are always specific. They're never vague, they're direct. There's no hint about how this will be fulfilled. Humanly speaking, it seemed apparently impossible, but God calls for absolute dependence and perfect faith and trust in Him. This was a matter of faith. And so often our dealing with God is to be a matter of faith. And God's promises come to us expecting faith for the fulfillment. And that comes to us as a challenge to trust and obey. For there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. And especially when all the evidence is to the contrary. When circumstances, and evidences, and opportunities, and everything else seems to point away from its fulfillment, that is the time for the believer to trust. To trust and to obey the Word of God. Now see how this is demonstrated in the attitude of many people to the Word of God. You know how the Word of God tells us that the day is coming when every eye will see him, when the Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Peter, of course, referred to that in the passage we read, but in other places. And for many years, the ungodly scoffed at that as being an impossibility. My friends, it is possible for us to see things that happen anywhere in the world by means of the media today. That which seemed to be ridiculous to our forefathers is now technically possible. Now, I'm not saying that when the Lord Jesus Christ comes again, he'll appear on the television or on the media. I'm not saying that it'll be done by those means. I don't know how it will be done, but it's not likely to be through man's communication media. But when God says every eye will see him, when he comes again, that is a fact. And what would seem to be ridiculous to many people, certainly even when I was a child, I can remember even preachers, even evangelical, so-called evangelical preachers pouring scorn upon the idea of that kind of thing happening. But that is now in fact a possibility, isn't it? Well, let's look at this under a number of headings. I have four headings that cover the whole of this section. We're gonna look at the first one tonight. Maybe on Tuesday, we'll look at another couple of them, but we're only gonna look at the first one tonight. Here is the first major heading, the tragedy of unbelief. Verse two, the tragedy of unbelief. We're going to look at that and consider three things about this tragedy of unbelief. Verse two. Look, if the Lord would make windows on heaven, could this thing be? And he said, in fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it. Here's a man who comes with scorn, with sarcasm. It's the question of a doubter. It's not the question of questioning faith. Sometimes faith can ask questions of doubt because it's a cry for help, for greater faith. But that wasn't the case here. There's no sense of that in this man's words. The force of his words that even if there were windows in heaven, then this could still never happen. It is doubt of the highest and the most ungodly and the most arrogant order. It is as though he said, this is mere superstition and make-believe. It is utterly unreasonable to believe Elisha. Only a fool would do that. And that's what the world thinks, doesn't it? Of the words of the Christian. And that the Christian's gospel is utterly unreasonable and impossible. This phrase, windows in heaven, if you have a margin Bible and it does references to that, it will take you back to Genesis chapter seven and verse 11. It is a reference to the flood when we read that God opened the windows of heaven and poured out the flood. Now, you know, people today doubt the reality of the flood, don't they? I don't want to stop with this in great detail, but there are many people today who say that the flood could not possibly have been worldwide. Never think that doubting the reality of a worldwide flood is a new thing. Here it is in the Bible. Here it is in the Bible. Don't think that this is just a modern result of evolutionary atheistic thinking. Here is a man who pours scorn on the belief in a universal flood of judgment that destroyed the world at the word of the Lord God Almighty. Even if you believe in a worldwide flood, you don't expect me to do so. This is only myths and fables. What do people say? They don't believe in miracles. They don't believe in these things. Well, I don't know, my friends. I was reading an article only this week from a Christian speaking about some of these things and how to answer the world. And the man was saying this. Well, people say they don't believe in miracles. They don't believe in magic. They don't believe in these things happening. And yet what do they believe in? Well, they believe that nothing exploded and became something. That, to me, sounds like magic. They use in order to try to understand how the stars were formed and the galaxies. They, all the things that they can't explain, they use what this man said, the two imps, the two gnomes, the two fairy tales of dark matter and black holes. Nobody knows anything about dark matter and black holes, but they somehow explain the mystery of the stars and the galaxies. And then he spoke about inanimate matter evolving into life. What a miracle, what magic, what rubbish. Whereas all we see is in this life, death and decay and destruction. And the atheist condemns the Christian for believing in miracles. You've got to believe in miracles to believe in evolution. Well, enough of that, enough of that. But this man has got that kind of attitude, hasn't he? That's exactly the attitude. If the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be? Can't happen. It's all myth, it's all fable, it's all rubbish. Why is that? Well, let me give you three reasons. The tragedy of unbelief, three things. Firstly, unbelief argues from reason. Now, there are times, of course, when unbelief can seem very plausible. Even the devil quotes scripture for his own purposes. And unbelief can seem utterly reasonable. Remember, for example, that Galileo was imprisoned by the Inquisition by insisting that the earth went round the sun. Everybody said, well, actually it was the religious people of his day who attacked him, more than the scientists, if you know the history, but that's another matter. Mocking God's word. And today there are still many mockers of God's word. Not so very many years ago, you will remember this man, I've spoken of him before, I'm not going to go into this in detail, but the Bishop of Durham, David Jenkins, poured scorn on the Bible's account of the resurrection, mocking God's word. Some years ago, there was a family magazine that poked fun at worship and death and heaven, and said that anyone who believes in such rubbish must be a fool. And then back in the 1980s, there was a so-called Christian music magazine. If I mention the name of it, some of you might remember it, you might not. As far as I know, it's gone out of existence. But there was an article in one of the magazines. We used to have it in the bookshop down in St. Ives until this particular issue came along. And having read it, we decided that we weren't going to stock it any longer. no longer had it. And it said this, it opposed those who drop evangelical time bombs into conversation by insisting on quoting scripture. Can you imagine that? This was a Christian magazine for young people. And it telling them that if you quote scripture, you're putting evangelical time bombs into the conversation. In other words, you're blowing up people's understanding. You're stopping them from thinking reasonably. Well, we stopped stocking that magazine, and in fact, some of the articles that were being portrayed by it were, it seemed to some of us, almost bordering on the mildly pornographic. It was a dreadful magazine. It's gone to the wall now, and good job, Goodriddance. And all of these are arguments from reason. They're saying that no intelligent person, no reasonable person can believe the Bible. This is what this man is saying here. He's saying that if anybody is reasonable, they cannot possibly expect this thing to happen. Unbelief argues from reason, reason alone. Now reason is important, don't misunderstand me, but reason alone is not enough. Secondly, unbelief derides God's word, derides God's word. Unbelief dismisses as incredible God's promises. Elisha, you say that fine flour will be sold for a shekel, and two sears of barley for a shekel. Where is anybody going to get fine flour from in this situation? Where is anybody going to find any barley? There's none in the city. We are starving. Nobody has got anything. This was far worse than the panic buying at the beginning of this coronavirus incident, where you couldn't get flour for love nor money in Sainsbury's or anywhere else. Where are you going to get it from? This is crazy. This is ridiculous. There is a besieging army around the city. They've desolated and plundered the country all around. Even if they left, there are no crops or produce left. There is nothing else to help. This is impossible. We are all alone and there is no help. My friends, that's the attitude of the godless. They have no concept of the power of the Lord God of miracles. They say common sense says there is no hope and unbelief derides the word of God and cannot see what the eye of faith can see. Now this is very significant because in 2 Kings chapter 6 as we saw and in verses 16 and 17 God has provided rescue and safety for Elisha in Dothan and kept him safe. And if we turn over to 2 Kings and chapter 4, which was not so very far in the past, God provides for the people of God by providing to heal the death in the pot so that they may feed, and then provides enough food to feed a hundred men, and it is by God's providence and grace. Unbelief derides God's word, even when God has demonstrated so recently that he is well able to provide for his people. And thirdly, unbelief discounts the miraculous. Unbelief argues from reason. Unbelief derides God's word. Unbelief discounts the miraculous. Now my friends, I find this, I don't, bless you, I don't find it among the friends in Dralston, but I found it over the years, sadly, sadly among some Christians. When suddenly, when a challenge is produced, they find this is a bit uncomfortable, it's a bit too close to home, and it's a bit too sudden. And they maybe hear of things that God does in other places and in other parts of the world. And they say, well, it's all very well to accept what God is doing overseas, or somewhere well away from here, or what God did in the past, but he cannot do that today. That isn't the way God works, they say. That's the heart of unbelief, my friends. Everything can be explained away. And there is no such thing as the miraculous and the supernatural. And this nobleman trusted only in his senses. What he could not see was to him invisible. And what he could not do was to him impossible. Why do so many people in this world turn to other things? Why do they turn to drugs? Why do they turn to the occult? Why do they turn to other things? Why do people talk about drowning their sorrows in drink and other things? Partly because the supernatural has been discounted for so long. Man is a supernatural being. If he doesn't worship the living God, he will worship something. And today, people worship today in the West, people worship materialism, don't they? Things and experiences. Man is a spiritual being. Mankind, male and female, are spiritual beings. And if the believer, if the Christian, cannot provide the answer to man's deepest need, he will inevitably seek answers elsewhere. And sometimes that's in drugs, or in the occult, or in false religions, or in all manner of other things. But unbelief at the last brings tragedy, brings tragedy. It is dangerous and it leads to destruction as this nobleman found out to his cost. The laugh of unbelief and scorn is soon turned into tragedy. And these words of Elisha are very solemn. He said, in fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it. You shall not share it. One day, and that day will come very soon for this man here. It only happened later that day or possibly at the very latest the following day. You will see, this is what Elisha was saying to him, you will see that God's word is true, but you won't share in it. And I find that so sad, so tragic. And these are God's words to those who persist in refusing him. Refuse the message. Pour scorn upon God's grace. Deny his promises. And you will come one day to see that God's word is true and that the promises are true, but it'll be too late. You will not partake of them. And these are such a solemn warning to us, aren't they? Because when God says he's going to do something, he will do it. And what is there to stop the omnipotent God from making windows in heaven? But he doesn't need to do that. When we come to the end of the story, and many of you, probably all of you know the end of the story. We haven't read it yet, the account. God doesn't need to make windows in heaven. He actually does something far simpler. Far, far simpler. Why do we look for the spectacular? Thank God if He gives us the spectacular. Please God he will, but he doesn't have to give the spectacular. He can do it by all kinds of ways. The word of God comes, it comes to four lepers and they bring the good news of God's answer, the most unexpected and most profound. And my friend, I think that that gives to me great hope. And to those of us who love the Lord, who are not guilty of unbelief, who have come to trust him, I think this is wonderful. He's wonderful. We may well be ignorant of the means that God will use. In fact, we probably will be ignorant of the means that God will use. But the fact that God will use means, and the fact that God will hear our prayer, and the fact that God will answer, and the fact that God will get glory to his name, and the fact that God will accomplish his purposes, and the fact that God will save men and women, and the fact that God has promised that one day the earth will be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. My friends, that should give us confidence and hope. That is no hindrance to faith. in the Lord God of miracles. And whether he does it miraculously, whether he opens windows in heaven, or whether he just does it by using four lepers, God can still bring his purposes to bear and answer to glorify his name and to bless his people and to do us good. My friends, that is a God worth trusting, isn't it? And that is a confidence worth having. And that's why we sang that hymn a moment or two ago. When we walk with the Lord in the light of his word, what a glory he sheds on our way. While we do his goodwill, he abides with us still and with all who will trust and obey. God bless you. Well, we're going to sing, or we're going to consider a hymn as we close this evening. It is a very reflective hymn of Martin Luther, 791. And it is a setting of Psalm 130. And Luther has taken this and written these words. my prayer before thee. And it begins in distress, but it ends in hope and confidence and glory. And I hope these words will be a blessing to you this evening.