Responsibility in Revival
Part
2
By Iverna Tompkins
Transcribed by Jane Vaughn
In Part 1 of this message, we looked at a story concerning Elisha and the woman with a huge debt to pay (2Kgs4). She was instructed to borrow vessels into which she could pour what she had - oil. When the vessels were used up, the oil ceased. Too few vessels.
Let’s look at another “too small.” A marvelous story. 2 Kings 13:14. “Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died.”
I just have to interject this at the beginning. I believe in divine healing. You must know I do. I’ve been healed by the mighty hand of God many, many times. There are times in meetings or congregations when it is as a wave of healing flowing in the place and scores of people are healed. I believe in that. But there also comes a time when it is the end of a person’s life on earth, and the Lord wants to take them home. Many such times, He uses the vehicle of sickness to take His people home. Why? I know you need an answer, so I’m going to make one up! :-) I have to confess, I don’t really know. I’m going to use a line of logical thinking for us, however. I believe God uses sickness to bring about physical death, mainly for the people who are going to be left here. When you see your loved one so gravely ill, you begin to have an expectancy of being without them. It is a time of preparation for the ones who will be left.
My father tried to die, for about three years. Poor guy! He had just a little touch of cancer of the bone. And he wasn’t really in very much pain at first, but his main problem was four out of five of his children were preachers! And we’d go in to see him and command that cancer to leave, and it would go. We kept the poor guy reeling back and forth for three years! Honestly, we did! Judson would fly in and take control and speak healing. Dad would get up, dressed, get on with the program, and then he’d get sick again. Then I’d fly in. And then Bob would come. And then Jim would be there. And we’d just take authority over the sickness and…. One day, God spoke to me, “I want to take him home using this vehicle and your mother needs to know his end is coming!” The day God spoke that to me, that very same day, Judson had been overseas and just got back in town. He called and said, “Sis, I had a dream last night in which I attended Dad’s funeral. What do you think about that?” I said, “Well, let me tell you what I just heard from God!” Judson's response was: “We need to release Dad in prayer.” We released him and let him go, and God fulfilled His purposes. So, there is that truth, too. Jesus Christ is healer, absolutely. He’s also Lord. And we need to be sensitive to what His purposes are when one is not healed.
Second Kings 13, verse 14. Elisha was sick, he was going to die. That’s it. He’s leaving. Nobody is going to lay hands on him and raise him from the sick-bed. God says, “This is it. Elijah went up in a whirlwind (2Kgs.2:1) but Elisha’s going to go by sickness.” Is that lack of faith on Elisha’s part? Are you serious? This guy is still ministering on his deathbed! Are you going to tell me he doesn’t have faith?
Let’s read on in verse 14, “And Joash, the king of Israel” – the king of God’s people – “came down unto him,” and starts crying “over his face.” We’re so good at that. “Oh, please don’t go! Please don’t go!” Do we as Christians not need to learn how to deal with death? Joash is not crying for Elisha! He’s crying for himself! He says basically, “[I… you know we’re in trouble.] O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.” Those are the very words that Elisha said to Elijah (2Kns.2:12). It is a very self-serving statement. It says, “Don’t leave me! I need you! You’re the only hope we have! We’re being besieged by the king of Syria. He’s won so many times! You’re the only hope!”
“And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And [the king] took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow.” You’re going to get involved with deliverance whether you like it or not! “And he put his hand upon it, and Elisha put his hands upon the king’s hands.” Oh, church, your hand will never be alone upon the bow and arrows of God’s deliverance! But God will never put His hand on it until yours is there first! Selah!
“And he said (verse 17), Open the window eastward. And he opened it.” It is profitable to pause here and discover through a little research, “why eastward?” It is not some religious thing about facing Jerusalem or some certain direction. Eastward was toward Gilead and Bashan which was where Syria had affected their greatest influence against God’s people. Those victories under Hazael, at this time, had been won in the east. Now here is our application: our Lord is saying to us, “Alright, let’s look at the area where you lose your battles most often. Let’s find the hardest area. It’s right out there – toward the east. Somebody open that window toward the east.” The man of God says, “Get your hand on the bow.” And then the Lord puts His hand over ours. Hallelujah! Aren’t you glad He holds your hand? And Elisha put is hand on the king’s and says to Joash, “Alright, shoot!”
Verse 17. “And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria; for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them.” Now, this is a prophetic word through the man of God to the king who is in charge. He says, “You have now taken the bow. Put your hand on the bow and stretch it back.” You’ve seen archers, haven’t you? You begin to pull and you pull and you pull. It’s not so easy to do it right. When you have pulled that string just so far, and there’s no way you can pull it back further - until the Lord gets hold of it! You get about this far, and the enemy says, “It won’t work!” And we get tired pulling and let go of the string – until we hear the Lord say, “Get that bow up again! Enough of this defeat in your life! I have made you ‘more than conquerors through him that loved you’ (Rom.8:37). Come on! Let’s do it! You and Me!” And He puts His hand over ours and our strength is renewed. Now, we can successfully pull that thing back and let go of the arrow and say, “the deliverance of the Lord” as it shoots out. Then the word of the Lord comes, “You’re going to defeat the Syrians.” Hallelujah! We can do all things through Christ (Phil.4:13); it’s His strength!
Then Elisha says, “Take the arrows (verse 18). And he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground.” We’re talking about demonstrating the victory, here. We could say, “Declare it!” “Smite the ground.” And the king took the arrows, so he was involved with this also. He smites the ground once. “The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance.” He feels so good about it he does it twice. “The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance.” “Ooohhhh!” he says, “Glory to God! The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance!” “[Three times] he smote and [quit].
“And the man of God (verse 19) was wroth with him, and said, thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it, whereas now thou shalt smite Syria…” – just what you believe for – three times. You see, Church, we have been satisfied with partial victories long enough. We say, “Well, we didn’t win the war but we won this battle. Hallelujah!” And the Lord says, “No! I didn’t call you just to win little battles! I want you to win the war!”
Oh, it’s easy when we think of our societal circumstances and become involved in all sorts of social or political issues. But I’m talking about your life. I’m talking about Iverna’s life. The Lord and I have a little talk, and He says, “You need to completely conquer the enemy in every area of your life. Now, here’s My hand over yours. Let’s shoot some arrows!” So, I shoot the arrow and I say, “Amen, Lord! I’m more than a conqueror through Christ!” He says, “That’s right! Let’s see how much you believe that! Start walking it out!” And I walk it out, once, and I feel good about once. And I’m ready for two. “Alright Satan, I’m coming after you in this area.” And I smite him a second time. “Glory to God! You see that victory?” I jump and dance and sing and rejoice. “Come on in! I’m not afraid of you!” And he comes to my arena and I smite him the third time. “You’re not getting me, Satan! Hallelujah! I am victorious in Christ!”
And I say, “Now I have to tell the people how victorious I am. Hey, people! Three times! Do you believe that? Three areas of my life that once the enemy ruled. I want you to know the Lord has given me faith and strength and I have won over those three areas.” One little problem with that. While I’m fighting Syria for the third time, Assyria is gathering forces together and I don’t have faith for this one. And yes, if you look at it historically, you’ll discover Assyria came in, attacked God’s people and won (2Kgs.15:29ff). In fact, the Israelites went back into captivity.
They only had three victories over Syria (2Kgs.13:25). And later, Syria wins over them again (2Kgs.16). You see, that’s the story of too many Christians’ lives! They’ve become fairly victorious – once, twice, three times – and then said, “I give up!” This is not time to give up! You see, the problem with this is too small of a vision for so large an ability.
Paul said, “I can do all things…” (Phil.4:13). Look at his life. Walk through New Testament with a fresh observation. Read it now – read it again next month. It doesn’t take long to read the New Testament. Read it through again. Watch Paul. This little nobody, this little man of four-foot eleven. He’s not so great! Beady eyes, big nose, eye trouble, bald head and bowed legs! That’s actually what the historians write of him. It’s an honest description of Paul. He had nothing going for him. His intellectual education was his problem, not a blessing, as he had trouble communicating with people because he was so brilliant!
You wonder, “How do you know that?” Well, read it! He says, “I’ve determined to know nothing among you but Christ (1Cor.2:2). Now, let’s talk about where you are. I want you to understand. It’s this: Jesus Christ is the hope of glory” (Col.1:27). Paul had studied under Gamaliel (Ac.22:3), a very well known and highly lauded Rabbi. Not everyone was accepted into his school. Paul was brilliant and highly educated, but he is now reduced to simply declaring, “I’ve got to get this message across.” He’d go into a city, they’d stone him, throw him out and then say to him, “If you ever come back into this country at all, you’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison.” So, he’d get on a boat and go to the next country – no home, no possessions, no money. You can read all this in the Book of Acts, beginning in Chapter 13.
I think the story I like best about Paul is when he was in Athens. (Ac.17:16ff) I love it when he arrived there. He disembarked from the ship, alone. He has nothing and his whole attitude is, “Oh, this is ‘sin city’! Where shall I begin?” And he thinks, “Let’s see, I guess the most people are down in the marketplace.” So, he goes down to the marketplace. And he says things like: “Do you know Jesus Christ? Do you realize He’s the only begotten of the Father? He was crucified in Jerusalem. But, do you know He was resurrected from the dead? He’s the Messiah you’ve been waiting for.” And he gathers a crowd.
The great philosophers hear him and think he’s the funniest little nothing they’ve ever seen. They got together and made a spurious invitation: “Hey, you seem to be espousing some new doctrine. How would you like a chance at it on Mars’ Hill?” That’s the place the philosophers used to go to argue lofty ideas. It was a natural setting where easily heard, sort of like a pavilion. And the people would come and listen to them in their great exhortations and so on. They probably thought it would be great fun to embarrass Paul with their deep thinking.
“How’d I like to go to Mars’ Hill? Are you serious?” Paul says. “Great! Oh, terrific idea! I’d love the opportunity!” They think, “This is going to be fun! We’re going to make mincemeat out of this little guy!” Paul shows up at Mars’ Hill. As he walks through the streets of this pagan city, he sees all the different altars to a myriad of gods. Little “g.” You see, the Greeks were pantheistic, believing in the existence of many gods, whom they worshipped all at once. Paul’s opening statement is this (verse 22): “Men, as I came here to speak to you today, I noticed that you are very religious and even have an altar marked ‘To the Unknown God.’ I know Him well! I’d like to tell you about Him.”
You see, that reveals Paul’s vision. This little man had a big vision - of starting churches everywhere he went. He’d stay long enough to pour the oil into the vessels until they could carry on in his absence. Paul grounded them in the truths of the Gospel, set them in place as a church, and went elsewhere to create more of the same. We’ve lost that. We sit around saying, “Ooohhh, I wish that there was some group here. I wish there was a ‘well’ in this area. Oh, God. What I wouldn’t give if there was just someone in this area who could….” You’re there! Why don’t you dig a well? I can hear your reaction, “Well, I’m no preacher!” Neither was Lydia! (Ac.16:14,40). But she started a prayer group and got them together so that when the Lord tricked Paul into going there – oh, yeah, He did too! Paul was not intending to go there.
You don’t read your Bible right, :-) and you miss so many things! You think Paul would have gone over there if Lydia had written him a letter saying, “There’s a lot of us here – most of us are women – but we need a touch. We’re gathered together over here in Macedonia and Philippi. We’d like you to come and minister to our group.” It was a male-dominated society in those days. Can’t you just hear the men? “Oh, listen, we’d love to come but our itinerary is filled for the next twenty-five years!” So, the Lord gives Paul a vision of a great big man. Read it: Acts 16:6-10. This man in the vision says, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” “We’ll be right there! Men, pack it up. We’re going to Macedonia!”
When Paul gets over there and starts looking for the church, what does he find? “Where’s this big man God showed me?” “I don’t know about that. The only group of believers is down by the river, headed by someone by the name of Lydia.” You see, if you get the thing going, God will send you the pail – His resource – His provision.
Back to 2 Kings 13, verse 20. Elisha did die. Oh, this is a funny story. You look at it. Verses 20 and 21. Elisha dies and they just put him in a pit, which is their custom. About the same time, some others were carrying another man who had died and they were going to bury him nearby. And all of a sudden, they see the Moabites coming – the enemy shows up! They are so frightened, they take this corpse and dump him. “Hey, just get rid of him.” And their hurry-up attitude is, “every man for himself!” VOOP!! They toss this dead man and he happens – he just happens – to fall into Elisha’s grave, right on top of him! And as soon as he touches the bones of Elisha, the Spirit in Elisha hits him and he stands back up, revived! I would have loved to see their faces when he came crawling out! :-)
I’ve already talked to you about too little oil. When we think of this, we have to consider the story from Matthew 25 about the ten virgins. We can learn so much from them. Let me mention just this: the one thing that the five foolish virgins did not have was enough oil – to wait. We must have our lives so completely filled with the Holy Spirit to enable us to wait until the Lord shows up in response to our pleas. Now that’s a part of: Ask, and then seek, and then stand at the door and knock (Mt.7:7,8) and expect Him to respond. Some times we leave before He has an opportunity to respond. We get tired of waiting for His answer and give up. But Jesus is telling us in Matthew 7 to hang in there, to keep on asking until we receive what we are asking, seeking, and knocking for. “Lord, You’re there!” and we’re so surprised sometimes. He says, “That’s fine. Keep the lamps bright because I’m going to do what I promised you I would do.”
Go to Part 3
