If you turn and your Bible's with me, we continue in this 29th message. It says 25, but it's really 29 in the Elijah, Elisha series. And today we're looking at this ax head story. And I really enjoyed working on this this week. This is quite an incredible story. And I hope that it'll be a message that every last one of you will profit from. I believe there's something here for all of us. And if you don't get it, I can only say it's so simple. You can't miss it. So I hope you get it. I hope you get it. I wanna start with verse four. So Elisha went with them. And when they came to the Jordan," this is 2 Kings 6, 4 through 7 now, "...so Elisha went with them," all the seminary students, "...and when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was felling a log, his axe said, WHOOSH! Blew off the handle. It fell into the water, and he cried out, Alas, my master, it was borrowed. Then the man of God said, Where did it fall? Then he showed him the place and he cut off a stick and threw it in there and made the iron float. So he said, take it up. And he reached out his hand and took it. I've entitled this message, God Has an Answer for You. And I believe there's not just an answer for the man that lost his accent. But God has a miraculous answer also for you. Father, take this message today. Speak to our hearts. Don't let us walk away without Your Word by Your Spirit in our hearts. Not just what I would say, because I'm trying to share this morning in the power of the Spirit what you've given me. But Lord, I don't know what you're gonna minister to each heart. I pray that each one this morning will walk away with something that may be a change agent in their life. For Jesus' sake, I pray. And Lord, for those that don't know you today, don't let them walk away without Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen. How many of you today, without raising your hands, I don't wanna see the whole congregation raising their hands on this, but I would imagine all of us could. How many of you today are worried about something? Don't raise any hands. There's some special need in your life, maybe in your spouse's life, maybe in your family's life, maybe in your church's life, right now. and I call you as we face our special needs. Remember how often God promises to meet all our needs. He says He'll meet our every need. Have you forgotten some of His promises? Matthew 6.32 is powerful. Your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. He knows. My all-time favorite promise is in Psalm 3725. I speak with David, I've been young and now I'm old. Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging bread. Beloved, when you think your dreams have sunk, I want you to remember that God's power defies the law of gravity. I ask you, have you forgotten the promises of God? Philippians 4.19 is still in the book of books, the Bible. But my God shall supply, what? All your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Have you forgotten David's psalm in Psalm 34, 9 and 10 and verse 19? O fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack The young lions do lack, they suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all. Don't ever forget Matthew 6.33, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Beloved, our Father is a great provider. He is the only eternal and Supreme Provider, and our provision is found in Him. Jesus wants us not to worry, but to trust Him in the middle of our anxieties. We need to remember what H. Edwin Young once said. He said, Our extremity is always the Lord's opportunity. When you are at your extremity, God is ready to show you His grace and His miracles. I've watched that in the last month in my own life. I've seen the Lord come to our extremities as His opportunities. David said in 1 Samuel 30, verse six, but David strengthened himself in the Lord, his God. I want this message to be a message that will help you strengthen yourself in the Lord, your God. You yourself, even if you're alone, can strengthen yourself in the Lord, your God, because our greatest strength is often shown in our ability to stand still and trust the Lord in our storms. Our text today seems to be one of the most simple little stories in the Bible. I was told this week the three points of the message, so I didn't even have to work on this if I would have used the outline. But it simply is, it sinks, it floats, it's the Lord. Okay? So if you need an outline and don't like mine, you just put it sinks, it floats, it's the Lord. This little story doesn't seem to pack much of a punch unless you dwell on it and meditate on it a while. In 2006, I began thinking more about ax heads. I wanted to cover this up as I was bringing a lethal weapon into the congregation this morning, but this is an ax head. I was up walking. in the mountains hunting. I was somewhere between Lander Creek or Sweetwater River and Lander itself. I was out next to the wilderness, not in the wilderness, but close. And I was walking along and I almost stumbled over this, this ax head. Now this is no regular ax head. I looked on the left-hand side of it. You can tell what's the left because This is the left, this is the handle, this is the right-hand side, and I've read here some interesting words. It says, Cohoes, New York. Now, I've never been to Cohoes, and I never knew there was a Cohoes until I got this in 2006, 13 years ago. Cohoes, New York, cast steel. I don't know if you can see from here, you see the black at the top? That's steel, the rest of this is iron. And I brought it home. I got the words magnified, Coho's New York Castile Daniel Simmons Shop. It's an antique. I didn't know how old, so I researched. And as I researched, I got a letter back from Virginia B. Bowers, the historian in the city of Albany, New York. She wrote me and she said, Dear Pastor Carlson, I was so delighted to receive your inquiry regarding the axe head you discovered, which was made in Cohoes, New York. And then she sent me a map marking the spot on Simmons Island, where the Castile factory was on Ontario Street, just east of Kosciuszko Avenue, where the ax head was made between 1825 and 1834. That's kind of an old ax head. Now, it's not nearly as old as the one this man lost. I mean, you have to understand, there's antiques and then there's really old things. And then she sent me a picture of a New York State historical marker that reads, right there at that Simmons Island where the factory was, Axe Factory established by Daniel Simmons in 1825, said to be the first factory in the United States to make axes from cast steel. I can't leave it alone without telling you just a little more how you do this, because I could never make one of these, and it's an incredible thing. Daniel Simmons made the cutting edge of this axe by welding a piece of steel into a groove in the iron at the top that he called a bit. It's a critical step. It required flux, which was borax and salamonia. and the iron body of the axe head was brought to a white heat, the steel insert to a cherry red heat, and then the flux was sprinkled on the interfaces. The pieces were put together and assembled and brought together with a welding heat that forged them together like this. The final steps were to shape the working steel edge by hammering it, grinding it, and pounding it, and polishing it, Now, that ax head is close to 200 years old. The ax head, we're talking about close to 3,000, about 2,912 years old, if the facts that I have chronologically in my Bible are correct. That's pretty old. You say, they were making Exodus not Castile, but they were making iron axes back then. In fact, in the days of Moses, 558 years before this guy lost his ax head, In 1451 B.C., Deuteronomy 19.5 was written before Jeremiah wrote 2 Kings about this lost ax head, and it says, If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him in the past, as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and there they are having fun together cutting wood, you know how we go together and cut wood, men. His hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor. So that he dies, he may flee to one of the cities of refuge. You say, oh, so they're making it back in 1451. No, they were making it much further back. Go to Genesis 4, 22. And you'll find there they were forging iron axe heads back then, because around 3875 BC, I don't know how anyone counts those, but they count all the difference, the sun of, the sun of, and come back to that date. And Zillah bore Tubalcain. He was a forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. So that's a little background. Now we're gonna preach on this, but I just wanted you to know about axe heads. So you know this is an old ax head that we're talking about. Now, I went to Ace Hardware Because I just had to know for sure. One person told me it weighed 8 pounds. I knew it didn't weigh 8 pounds. I didn't know how much it weighed. I can't really tell. So, you know, they've got a nail. They've got a nail thing there to get nails. And they've got a little scale. And I put it on there. And it jumped to 8, but it came back and settled on 3 1⁄2 pounds. That's a 3 1⁄2 pound ax head. Now, I would imagine that the way they were made back then, it was probably even heavier than that. Now, I didn't try this. You can go home and try it with one of your Axeds. I didn't try putting it in water, but I'm almost positive it will not float or swim. I just believe that's true. Do all of you agree that iron Goes to the bottom? Okay. So we need to understand when God's doing a miracle, He wants to get our attention. But if you don't believe it, try it when you get home and see if your axe head floats. What do we have to learn from this message today? I have four simple lessons that God has brought to my heart and I want to bring them to you. And as I bring them to you today, I ask you in Jesus' name, whatever you're thinking right now, Remember, God's Word trumps our thoughts. God's Word trumps our thoughts. Listen to the Word of the Lord. God's call to hope and His miracles happen over and over in the midst of our normal, everyday lives. In other words, when normal things are happening, like a baby dedication. Isn't that a wonderful thing over at Clark's? A baby dedication, because they have a little child. That's a normal thing in everyday life, a baby dedication. We read here what normal things are going on. It says in verse one and two, the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, see the place where we dwell under your charge is too small for us. In other words, that seminary, that bunch was swelling. More and more students wanted to learn the word. And he says, let's go to the Jordan and each of us get there a log and let us make a place for us to dwell there. And he answered, go. What are some of the normal circumstances in this text? I want to give you six. First of all, God's call to hope and miracles happen in the midst of faithfulness and unfaithfulness. If you remember the last message I preached, it was on Gehazi. Gehazi, one of the sons of the prophets, had a lying spirit just like Ananias and Sapphira. He had a materialistic, Mindset, even though he's one of the sons of the prophet, he was greedy. And he had a coveting spirit for what was not his own. And yet, though he was under the Elisha's charge, you say, well, they were all a bunch of bad men. No, they weren't, don't be cynical. The majority of these were men of God that weren't materialistic, that didn't have a lying spirit, that didn't have a covetous spirit for what was not their own. In the school of the prophets, probably in Gilgal, which is next to the Jordan River or nearby Jericho, God's people there were Gehazi-like people, but they had overcome the world with the help of the Lord. And most of them weren't lying. Most of them weren't greedy. They weren't covetous. They didn't succumb like Gehazi. They didn't have this filthy love for the world, lying lips and a covetous spirit. And one of the things that really bothers me, and it SCARES me for us as Christians, is when we see someone else fall in ANY WAY, and we judge them harshly for getting the Word of the Lord, because the Word of the Lord is clear in I Corinthians 10 and 12. Therefore, let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest HE fall, or SHE fall. The moment you think you've got it together and you've got the hammer on somebody else, just know the hammer could be on you before the day is over. Temptation comes, and don't think because you're standing now that you couldn't fall the next moment. Hope and miracles happens when people are hungry for the Word of God. They want to know the Lord. They want to be used by Him. These sons of the prophets, verse 1, why are they growing so much? They're hungry for the Word. They're effective heralds of the Word. God has touched their hearts. They have an understanding of how much they need to learn. And they got the best seminary professor in the land. The one that's in charge is Elisha, who is the protege of Elijah, the great man of God. Number three, God's call to hope and miracles happen where God's message is proclaimed and lives are being changed. I thank God there are a number of churches in this area where God's message is proclaimed and lives are being changed. I believe this is one of those churches, but we will not grow if God's message is not proclaimed. lives cannot be changed. People that love Jesus would flock to hear Elisha, but you can flock to hear anyone who is willing to proclaim the gospel of our Lord. You should eagerly seek to learn from anyone who can share. As I think of this home, we're going to have this baby dedication in today. I just want to say in front of your dad, Clark, you're a man that proclaims the Word of God. You are. Keep it up. Keep it up. Number four, God's call to hope and miracles happen when growth is stretching disciples and when there is a need for a building program because of limited space. You know, when growth happens and it's good, you don't have enough Sunday school teachers. Right, Kelly? needs more. There are so many children in one Sunday school class that one teacher can't effectively teach them by themselves. Or there is learning going on in a place that is becoming too small. Why do you think we have two services? It is difficult to put everyone in one service. The prophets disciples said, see the place where we dwell under your charge is too small for us. Let's go to the Jordan River and each of us get along there. Let's make a place for us to dwell there. And he said, go. Number five, God's call to hope and miracles comes when those who serve him are industrious, hardworking, sacrificial, but who often are dirt poor, very poor, very poor. You know, I don't know, you may know exceptions to this, but when I was in seminary, and even yet today, almost everyone I ever know that's in seminary is dirt poor. They just barely have enough to make it through. Often a man is married and has children and is trying to provide for that, and he's going to school at the same time. I just say pray for Nathan and Jericho. Pray for them as he's in seminary. How do you know he's poor? He was so poor he had to borrow an axe so he could be a part of the building program. He couldn't be a part of the building program without an axe. He wanted to go and chop down trees just like all the other men. Number six, God's call to hope and miracles often comes while a man or a woman of God is energetically doing the work of the Lord. This normal thing happened Probably there have been thousands of axes, axe heads that have flown off. How many of you here, when you're using an axe, have lost an axe head and be willing to just raise your head and say, I've lost an axe head? Well, Jim, oh yes. Ricky, I tell ya, I'll be honest with ya, if you haven't lost an axe head, you haven't probably chopped a whole lot of wood. I was chopping wood when I was nine years old and doing it faithfully all the way up all the way up. He didn't let me have anything but a little hatchet until I was about nine, and then I was chopping wood, let me tell you. This man, he lost his ability to work, he lost his effectiveness. How many of you ever tried to chop wood with an axe handle? Just hit it as hard as you want. Do what you can. It won't do any good. When you lose your cutting edge, you've lost your effectiveness. He's troubled. The ax is borrowed. The student would have to reimburse the owner for the lost ax head. The loss was no small loss. It might cost the seminary student dropping out of school. So, first of all, God's call to hope and His miracles happen over and over in the midst of our normal, everyday lives. Number two, God's chosen vessels to teach us to trust Him for answered prayer are just FAITHFUL people like Elisha, faithful people like Pastor Larry back there, or Pastor Will, who is down in Denver doing strong bonds, or Pastor Kevin, who has gone to Virginia. Let me tell you, The work of the Lord is just done, is just taught by normal people. Notice the servants of the Lord, like Elisha, are not just prophets or pastors, but any leader that's working and doing their share, even in a building project. Maybe cleaning up a mess in the bathroom at the church, cutting the grass, painting the classroom, taking trash to the dump. Yesterday, and I was working on this message, I was behind this week, I heard all this noise going on. I came out there and Pastor Zaccheo is out there. He's out there first with air and then he's out there with water, power water, and he is just washing down all in front of the church. And then Pastor Saul comes and seals that whole area in front of the church. They're pastors, what are they doing? They're cleaning up, making things nice so you won't fall on the way out of church. You'll notice verse 3 and 4. Elisha didn't have to go down to the Jordan and cut wood, but he did. It says, Then one of the sons of the prophet said to Elisha, Please, be pleased to go with your servants. And he said, I will go. So he went with them, and when they came to the Jordan River, they cut down trees. Now notice that this prophet of God, once the top student of the prophets, the protege of Elijah, signed on to an idea of a building program without it being his idea. Now I want you to understand, leaders don't often like to sign on to an idea unless it's their own. It's always best when a building program in the church comes from the congregation, and not from one of the pastors. Pastors and people should all sign on. And when asked, Elisha was willing to accompany the sons of the prophets to begin the program on this new seminary campus near the Jordan River. He would put his shoulder to the work. He'd lend his support. He'd lend his encouragement. Elisha knew the best lessons that are ever taught are taught in the very fabric of our work with other people. Pastor Larry, you do the greatest thing in the world when you take people fishing. You get down there, and you're casting, and you're not catching anything, and you're changing lures, and you're trying things, and the way you respond is probably more important even than the messages that you or I preach in church, because you're teaching. You're teaching. By example, Elisha knew the best lessons are taught on the job training. Elisha didn't shrink away from becoming sweaty with his students, getting to know them, where accidents happen, where tempers can flare, and where even borrowed ax heads can fly off the handle into the Jordan. Now I wanna say this before I go on here. This is very important. Whenever there is a building program, most people today think that's for professionals. In this day, it was a job for every single one of those seminary students. It's so easy for us to think somebody else will do it. That's why 90% of the work is done by 10% of the people, usually in church work. I read something that might be a help to all of us and help us to say, I wanna be involved. It's about everybody, somebody, anybody, and nobody. I don't know if you've heard it, and if you have, fine. you'll hear it for the first time, otherwise you get to hear it again. Once upon a time there were four men named everybody, somebody, anybody, and nobody. There was an important job to be done and everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure that somebody would do it, anybody could have done it, but nobody did it. Somebody got angry about it because it was everybody's job and everybody thought that anybody could do it and nobody realized that everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that everybody blamed somebody and nobody did the job that anybody could have done in the first place. I encourage you that leadership should lead the way in putting our shoulder to the wheel. Now I wanna say a little bit more about this before I go on. I'll get to the ax head floating. Don't worry, we're gonna get there. This is a lesson for leadership. And if you're a leader, I want you to listen up. The lesson is be willing to teach others as a humble servant. None of us know everything. Working side by side with men or women who are far more skilled in a building trade than you or I are, Pastor Larry, That's good medicine for any leader who doesn't mind sweeping or mopping the floor, who doesn't mind holding a ladder for an electrician, maybe like Kurt Barker, who can change these lights. I can hold the ladder. Is that important? That's important. You mean that's all you'd want to do is to hold the ladder? I don't want him to fall. I want to get all the lights fixed. Somebody who doesn't mind getting down in a septic tank and cleaning out a clogged line of the plumbing. I have to tell you a little personal story that when I went to Trinity College in 1963, I was working for a wonderful elderly man by the name of John Von Busch. He was a great big man, lots bigger than me. And I was the only one on the maintenance crew that was willing to clean out the septic tanks. No one else would get down in them. We had to bring a ladder and put down in the septic tank Then you had to crawl in just about to your neck, get a manual snake, and twist it and unclog the plumbing. And as I was down there in those septic tanks, we had all these houses that were part of our campus. Gals and guys would go by, hi, Rich. It's a stinky place to be, but I can tell you that's on-the-job training for being a leader. That's some of the best training I ever got. God gave it to me in a septic tank. On Friday when I arrived at church, some of you may have noticed, anyone notice a load of onions that shifted on a man with E&L Logistics over here? Anybody see the, you saw it? Yeah. Well, anyway, this guy is just going down the street all of a sudden. He hears it in the front of the, and he sees his truck kind of tip. He only has 16 pallets of onions that have 40 sacks of 50 pound onions on each pallet, and then wrapped around with this real tough plastic. And I said, what do you need done here? And he says, well, he says, I've gotta repack them on these pallets. I've gotta unpack them pack by pack, 50 pounds by 50 pounds, strip off the plastic. So I started doing that with him. And as we were doing it, he looked at me and he said, you know, he said, I don't like you doing this. I said, why don't you like? He said, I'm 30 years old and I don't know how old you are. But he says, I'm dying from doing this right now myself, and I don't want you dying on this job. And I said, he said, how old are you? I said, I'm 74. He said, could you get me somebody younger, real young, my age or younger? I said, would 40 be okay? How much will you pay? He said, I'll pay $400. I said, show me your money. He called up his man. went down to Wells Fargo, got $400, gave it to me, and I called Jeremy Louie. Some of you guys know Jeremy Louie? He's a good man, member of our church, and sits right back in there. Now Jeremy Louie has a brown belt and a black belt and a few other belts, but he worked for four and a half hours, his fingers were all torn up when he was done, and onion juice had gotten, it burns, had gotten into his fingers, I gave him lotion, But I told him, and I'll tell you, that's some of the best LEADERSHIP training that a man can ever have. Sixteen times forty, Pastor. Got it? What? What? Yes, 640. That's how many onion sacks. Now, I carried a bunch of them, but he carried the most of them. He works for Union Pacific. One last little word about this and I'll hurry on. This thing about being a faithful leader like Elisha, I'll go with you. I'll go help you. You must HUMBLE YOURSELF, we sing up here, HUMBLE YOURSELF in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up. The problem is, it's kind of a misunderstanding of that verse, because James 4.10 doesn't really say HUMBLE YOURSELVES in the sight of the Lord. It's Greek in the passive. It really is best understood as BE HUMBLED in the sight of the Lord, or allow yourselves to be humbled, or the equivalent is submit yourself to the humbling process God has ordered for you. What exactly does that mean? It means that every one of us is proud, everyone, me, you, all of us are proud. Leaders most often can be proud. God wants to bring us to a place of humility like Elisha, a place of dependence, to quit having to be in charge and to let God run our lives. Dependence on the Lord as Elisha had is probably why he did twice the amount of miracles that Elijah did. He did 22 miracles. as well as all the other work that he did. Dependence on the Lord humbly recognizes our need for God, for His authority in our lives, for His sovereignty to rule us, for His right to direct our lives His way. Elisha was a perfect example of what the New Testament calls abiding in the vine, or depending on the Lord in the vine as branches. Now number three, you thought I'd never get to it, now we're gonna talk about it. You know, it sinks, now it floats. God's care for us and His choice to help us in our crises never varies from age to age. Why? Because Jesus Christ is the same, what? Yesterday, today, and forever. Notice in verse 5 and 6, we read these words. But as one of them was felling a log, his axe head fell into the water, and he cried out, Alas, my master, it was borrowed. Then the man of God said, Where did it fall? And he showed him the place, he cut off a stick and threw it in there, and he made the iron swim or float. It's an interesting thing. This is a story about a crisis. How many of you have faced a crisis in your life even this week? And you'd say, I've faced a crisis this week. Well, I'll raise my hand. Okay, there's a bunch of us. How many of you have faced a crisis this month? How many of you faced a crisis this past year? What does this crisis teach us about facing a crisis? Does God care for us as much as He cared for this young seminary student 3,000 years ago, close to it? While I was preparing this message, I got a phone call from a man in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The man in Fort Smith, Arkansas, I met on August 25th, 2018. He came here for traveler's aid, and I had the joy of helping him. I can tell you he was an interesting man. It was hard to find a square inch on his body. He didn't have tattoos. So somebody made good on Russ Pfeiffer. He had every kind of tattoo, some he wouldn't have wanted you to see. I knew he needed the Lord. He told me his marriage had fallen apart. He had somebody offer him a job here in Rock Springs to play in their band, and he got here and they didn't need him anymore. He had no money to get home. Something that was unique about him that isn't normal for most of us guys, he had hair that was right down here. Came right down here on the back of his thigh. Hair that long. And it was a treasure to him. I asked him if he needed Jesus. He said, I need something. I said, you need Jesus. I said, what's going on in your life? I've got a wife there and I've got two daughters. He says, I want her to take me back. And he went on and on. I had the joy of leading him to Jesus. I gave him a lot of follow-up material, some books, how to grow. And he said, Pastor, do you really believe I can make it? Do you believe I can go get a job in Fort Smith, Arkansas if I go back? Do you believe that anybody will want me? I said, can I talk to you as a son? "'cause you could easily be my son." He says, what are you gonna say? I said, I'm not gonna tell you before I tell you. I'm gonna tell you first, I'm gonna tell you after you agree. He says, go ahead and talk to me as a son. I said, okay, son. I wanna read you a verse of scripture. 1 Corinthians 11, 14. Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it's a disgrace for him? And he looked at me as if I'd shot him. And I didn't apologize. I said, I'm going to pray over you. And we gave him some help to get on the bus and make it part of the way to Fort Smith, Arkansas. He made it there. He sent me a picture. He said, my hair is shorter than yours, preacher. And he had a buzz. And God has put him to work. He works for New Vision Center in Van Buren, Arkansas. He's been leading people to Jesus. And he called me specifically at this point in the message to say to me, would you ask your congregation to pray for Erin, that she might think one more time before the divorce goes through, that she might think about taking him back. I says, I have no idea what she's gonna do. That'll be between her and God. She claims to know Jesus. I said, but I'll ask our congregation to pray. So if you want to pray for Russ Pfeiffer and Aaron, E-R-I-N, he has the custody of one of the daughters, she has custody for the other. It's one of those sad messes that happen in our world. It's normal, it's happening all over. God's will be done. She says it's too little too late. It's up to God. Now, how does God care for us and His choice help us in our crisis? How is it that it doesn't vary from age to age? Let me give you three ways. First of all, Invite God's presence in every moment of your life. Now, as this seminary student, they had invited Elisha to go with them. They wanted God's presence. They wanted Elisha there. And so when the crisis hit, they didn't have to all of a sudden go back to God and say, God, I'm sorry I haven't been living for you. No, they'd been living for God when the axe had fell off. That's the first thing to do. If you wanna see God's help and his choice to help you, be living for him right now. before the crisis comes. Number two, like this student, cry out to God as he cried out to Elijah. Alas, O Lord, the ax was borrowed. Tell it frankly. Say what's happened. Turn to God immediately. Run to him in your desperation. Call on him. Tell him where you lost the ax at. Call on his precious name. And thirdly, know God will use your circumstances to bring about a solution. I've never had the Lord say, we'll have to leave here and go to New York, or we'll have to go over here. God can use something right in your situation to bring the answer. What's laying all around on the Jordan? What's laying around? All these felled trees. All of them laying there. He says, where did you lose the ax head? Right there. He went over with one of the other axes, took a stick, threw it in the water, just one little stick from one of those felled trees, and the iron did swim, just like that. God can use something in your circumstance to bring about the miracle. Now last of all, and probably most important of all, God's counsel from the past reminds us that God still restores borrowed tools we must have to be effective. God's counsel from the past reminds us God still restores borrowed tools we must have to be effective. Now, it says here in verse seven, and he said to the seminary student, take it up. So the student, the son of the prophet, he reached out his hand and took it. Now, as I was looking at this, You don't have to see what I see. I'm gonna just tell you what I saw. Elisha seems like a type of Christ to me. Would you come and go with us as we go and work? And that's what I say to the Lord. Moses said to God, if you don't go with me, I'm not leaving this place. I see that somehow Elisha is sort of a type of Christ here. And I see the sons of the prophets typifying us as we go to work with our accents. And I see the axe head, and you're gonna maybe wonder about this, but it reminds me of the person of the Holy Spirit, His enabling, His anointing, His effectiveness. And without the power of the Holy Spirit, try using an axe handle to get anything done. You can't get it done. Only through the power of the Holy Spirit can work be done. Now, if you're with me, what about borrowed tools? Warren Wearsby said this. And I think he's right. He says, whatever we have has been borrowed. Now you don't like to think about that. I bought every tool I've got in my toolbox. I saw a man with tools that took up rooms recently. He was looking for something for me and he found it. This man works right uptown here, came from Nevada. Pete Camel, let me tell you, he's got tools. But Warren Wiersbe says, whatever we have has been borrowed. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4.7, What do you have that you did not receive? What do any of us have that we did not receive? John the Baptist said in John 3.27, A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. Beloved, I want you to know whatever gifts, abilities, possessions, opportunities you have are all from God. They're all borrowed treasures, just like the prophet that lost the axe head. Judgment Day was around the corner. He would have to face the owner and say, I lost your axe head. He'd have to pay for it. It might make him drop out of school. Each of us must give an account for who we are, for what we have, and what we have been given. For the first 22 years of my life, I was given a Christian dad and mom. At age 21, my dad passed away. But I tell you today, I still have that Christian family. They support me. They pray for me. My brother Bruce called me yesterday and prayed for me, prayed for my wife. And then he said, you know, I've had diabetes for 20 years. I said, I know that, Bruce. He said, well, add one brother to it. Tim just got diabetes. So I prayed for Tim. Type 2 diabetes. I gotta take care of my family. I gotta take care of my family. I gotta pray for my family. And then, 22, after 22 years, I was married to the most wonderful gift God ever gave me, Jenny. For over 52 years, we've been married. I must answer someday for how I have loved her and lived with her and understanding. You say, well, I haven't lost anything. Well, that's good. I'm going to ask you, how have you used your borrowed gifts? Have you used them wisely? Ecclesiastes says in Ecclesiastes 10.1, if the ax is dull and you don't sharpen it, you must exert more strength. God wants us not to work harder, but smarter by God's grace. And I want you to know, if you leave out daily devotions, if you leave out prayer, if you leave out witnessing, if you leave out these sharpening agents in your life, you will be ineffective. Now, some of the last thoughts I've got to give you. Probably the most important ones I'll share. Did you know that this young prophet lost his valuable borrowed tool while he was serving the Lord. I said it earlier. It can happen to you. I can't tell you how many people I know and love who have lost their effectiveness for God on the job as a pastor, as a church member. They've been serving Jesus and the good news is that God is able to make iron float. He is able to recover for us what appears to be lost for good. God can put us back to work. Do what this young seminary student did. What did he do when he lost his ax head? He quit chopping. He quit working. It's obvious, you say. No, it isn't. Sometime we keep right on working when we've lost. Our effectiveness. Something's gone. The Spirit of the Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit is not upon us. We've lost our anointing. We've done something. We've walked out of God's will. It's foolish to swing an axe handle without an axe head. Make a full and frank confession to the Master. Show the Master where you lost your effectiveness. Maybe it was in service. Then stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. He loves you as much as he loved that seminary student. Tell the Lord where you lost your cutting edge, and look at 2 Kings 6-7, and Elisha said, Son, take up your ax head. Take it up. And he reached out his hand and took it. I want to tell you something. You may not believe it, but it's God's Word. Romans 11, 29. God's gifts and His callings are without repentance. They're irrevocable. God doesn't say, because you lost the exit, because you lost your effectiveness, because you did this awful thing, I'll never use you again. That's not God. That's not my Lord. In His time, He makes all things beautiful. There may be a day, and there will be a day, if you live very long, you can employ those gifts again. In closing, I want to remind you that one of the 30-some men I have mentored, his name is Brian, Pastor Brian, had an affair. An awful affair. I don't even begin to want to share it with you, but it happened in the line of his work. He's a pastor. I've cried with him in person on the phone when sometimes he was sobbing and I heard nothing but his sobbing tears for 10 minutes or more. He really repented. He's been for years without a charge. A church in Cook, Minnesota, way up in those beautiful northern woods up by Ontario. They called me, and the man of God that called me, he said, you know about this man's affair. I said, I do. You know what that would do to a church if he came and did that again. I said, I know. He said, you're his mentor. Watch your word on him. I said, I have no guarantees, but I believe in the power of God's healing, and I believe this man has truly repented, and I believe he'll be a man that will help you He is on the job in Cook, Minnesota, because, my brothers and sisters, God can make iron float! You say, that's too heavy a thing! God couldn't do it! God can make iron SWIM! I have one last little thought. You'll say, this is going too far. I'm gonna go ahead and go too far. What did he throw into the river? What did he throw into the river? Anybody know? A stick. You know what that reminds me of? The cross. Bring your lost ax head story to Jesus. Bring your loss to the cross. God can still, through the cross, make ax heads float for his glory. I told you at the start, it sinks, it floats, it's God. I'll say it another way. It was lost, it was located, it was lifted from the depths, it was lifted again to serve the Lord. And I pray this prayer for all of you. May God, by His healing grace, make all of our lost axe heads float for His glory. Amen. Would you bow your heads?