Elisha Series

Okay. Well, if you'd like to – if you have got a physical bible, if you'd like to turn now to 2 kings, chapter 6, and this is This is what we're going to be reading 2 kings 6 versus 1 to 7. And this in some ways, well, this is what Pete has saying that this is in some ways the reason that we embarked upon the Elijah and Elijah series so that we could get to this passage. And although Pete had earmarked it for himself and he was gonna be preaching this. The way it's worked out is that is that Ben is preaching it and it is a great story and we just look forward to hearing what God has got to say to us through this story.

So this is 2 kings 6 verse 1 to 7. The company of the prophet said to Elijah, look, the place where we meet with you is too small for us. Let us go to the Jordan where each of us can get a poll and let us build a place there for us to meet. And he said go. Then 1 of them said, won't you please come with your servants?

I will, Elijah replied and he went with them. They went to the Jordan and began to cut down trees. As 1 of them was cutting down a tree, the iron axe head fell into the water, I'll know my lord. He cried out. That was borrowed.

The man of God asked, where did it fall? When he showed him the place, Elijah cut a stick and threw it there and made the iron float, lifted out he said, then the man of God, then the man reached out to his hand and took it. There we go, Ben, over to you. Well, good morning everyone. Good morning here and out the back.

Good morning to you as well. And if you're at home, good morning, me. And actually quite embarrassingly now had written a really intricate, well told introduction to this sermon that explained how we'd waited through 1 and 2 kings just to get to this point and the pinnacle of this introduction was gonna be how I stole it from Pete. But this is a rebuke to me to to have too much fun with that sort of thing. No, that's fine.

It's absolutely fine. It's quite funny actually because we have been talking about it for months. And we've all looked forward to it. And I think that mainly the reason we'd be looking forward to it is because we absolutely no idea what on earth's story was about. Why is there a floating ax head story in the bible?

And maybe even more embarrassingly for me, I'd actually the first time I heard Pete talk about it, I had imagined it floating in the air. Like this. It's floating in water as we'll see. But I I so I was even more perplexed. I was like, wow.

You know, you've got the writing on the wall with belches that are floating finger. And then there's a floating ax head just sort of bopping around. Anyway, so here we are. Let's let's let's just start with with prayer. Oscar, to help us with this with the story.

Father, we thank you that you've given us your word. And as we open your word and look at it, this morning, would your holy spirit be helping us to understand the things you have to say to us? This story is in the bible for a reason and we pray that you would teach us lessons through it in Jesus' name, our men. Okay. So here we are.

It might seem like a random story. But actually, if you've been following us in our morning series in 2 kings recently, you'll know that it's come right after Gihazi He was the other servant of Elijah, and he was a servant who got a lot of things wrong. Didn't he? He made a lot of mistakes. And he messed up pretty big time in the end.

And we know that he didn't come to the profit at any point when he realized he'd made a mistake. So he got 1 thing wrong, but he didn't come to the profit and say, I'm sorry, forgive me, how can I change? He got another thing wrong, but didn't come and say, oh my goodness. I keep doing this. How can I how can I be different?

And when he first started to see the spots of leprosy in his heart, you know, that he started to think, oh, perhaps I can lie and make money for myself here. He didn't then cry out and say, I have a leperous heart. Will will you save me? And we saw how that turned out for him, this servant who who got things wrong. Today, we've got another servant who makes a mistake who gets something wrong, who messes up, but he immediately cries out for help.

He goes straight to the prophet when he realizes his mistakes. So I think what this is teaching us largely is that, look, we're like both of these servants There is only really 1 type of person in this world, and that's a sinner. We're all sinner. As you meet, Garazi, this servant here, we're all gonna get things wrong, but there are 2 types of sinners in this world. Sinners who cry out to God for salvation, and sinners who remained silent.

So if Khahazi was an example not to follow and we've dealt with him, what we're going to see in today's passage is a servant's example we should following. This is what we should be like, this guy right here. And the first example to us is actually, before we even get to the AXA head is in growth. The company has been growing. And because of that, it's worth looking at this because this is this is sort of what we're going through as a church as Tom as Tom has pointed out already.

So how is this serving an example to us in growth? So look at verse, 1 here. The company of the prophet said to Elijah, look the place where we meet with you is too small for us. It's too small. That's a problem we're familiar with, isn't it?

If you remember going back to a Beal Street -- Yeah. -- there were as Tom just described for us, there's been growth here in this company of profits. So people have been coming into the family. They've joined the company. They've become followers of God.

And it's a good problem to have, isn't it? When you're bringing people in, people are coming into the point where you can't fit anymore. And we're a bit more spaced out now, so we've got a whole extra problem on top of us. But they were like us, if you remember, in Beatlesford. And they'd probably turn the hall around, you know, rearrange the chairs to squeeze more people in.

The band had got further and further into the corner to the point where I don't know if you remember. The the front the first row used to be right in the faces We didn't have any of this. He just got showered in, like, in the in the sprayed by the singers. Maybe they've, you know, they've moved the tea in the biscuits. You remember when we did that 15 of biscuits into the hole to avoid the bottleneck of people trying to get out, kids stuff in their faces.

They've got a 1 way system in and out, you know, so that there is no people just try and squeeze past each other. Maybe they've even got Matt Drea himself leading a stewarding team, backing the car's nose to nose in the car park so that they can squeeze as many people as possible in. They've tried everything, but now they really do need to find a bigger place this company. And the problem is that there isn't a suitable place available, so it seems. So the plan in verse 2 is to build their own place.

Let us go to the Jordan where each of us can get a poll and let us build a place there for us to meet. Now I think this is a fantastic example for us at Cornerstone Church. I think we should each go downtown grab a poll and build a tabernacle right in the middle of the day. Now, but it is worth spending time, I think, just a few minutes before we get to the ax head looking at at at this. Because this company, when they come to Elijah, they've absolutely got the right attitude, perspective, and understanding about growth.

Which I want to take a look at because we can learn from their example here. So let's quickly take a look at each of these. They've got the right perspective about growth first of all, off the bat, they've got the right perspective. Even though they're growing and it must be very exciting when you grow and there's new people in and there's new ministries you can do and there's new opportunities that are coming up left right in center. And you think, oh, we need to get new space.

We need to expand. We need to grow. It's very exciting all of that, but actually these guys are sticking so closely to their roots. They're not losing perspective of where they've come from. Or of their first love God because the Jordan where they wanna go and build this new site, as we as we know, is a place of massive spiritual importance for god's people.

It's just a place full of meaning and remembrance. So it's the place where Joshua led god's people into the promised land. It's the place where Elijah on his farewell tour crossed the Jordan by splitting the water, reminding people Moses, salvation. Remember this? It's the place where Elijah himself took up the mantle and it's the place where Jesus 1 day is gonna be baptized.

So this company of profits aren't getting too excited about the growing and have forgotten the grower. They remember their roots and they're gonna stick closely to him. When they look out of the window of their building, they want to remember God and what he's done. They wanna see the Jordan. So they've got the right perspective.

Secondly, they've got the right attitude. I think this one's really key because when these people in this company see a problem. They don't crumble to each other. But they come to the profit and suggest a solution. I think this is remarkable because I'm so not like this.

I you know, we live in the age of customer service. Don't we? And when Starbucks get your drink from, what do you do? You go and complain. You go, excuse me, this is not very good.

Please, can you put some more sugar in it? Thank you very much. But these guys, they don't complain. They're not there, you know, huddled together, squashed in their, you know, car park at the end going, oh, why haven't we got a place big in you know, why isn't the company doing more about this? Or why isn't Elijah leading us to it to a bigger building?

You know, you know, that company over there does a much better job of of that than this company. They're not doing that. When this company see a problem, they come to the man of God with a solution in mind. They're proactive. They say, let us go to the Jordan.

Where each of us can grab a pole, let us build a place there for us to meet. But even though they're proactive, notice they're not going rogue either, it's not like they come into the license and you're doing a rubbish job of us leading inmate. Sorry. Call yourself a profit. We can't even fit in a building anymore.

Yeah. So we've made up our minds up to go and build this with or without you. They're not doing that either. They're they're actually coming to Elijah to present this as a solution to him. They say, let us go.

Let us build. Yeah? We're asking for your blessing. We've got a problem. We we think we've got a solution.

What do you think about this? What do you reckon? And then Aisha replies, go. Yeah. Go.

Great idea. Fantastic. Love that you're thinking like that. Love that you're coming up with with problem solving ideas. You have my blessing.

But actually, we see that they they want more than just his permission because in verse 3, 1 of them asks specifically, won't you please come with your servants? Yeah, we've got permission to go. But actually, we don't wanna go without you. Don't send us unless you're gonna go as well Elijah. And actually, that If you know Exodus in the Old Testament, that's reminiscent of Moses speaking to God in Exodus 33.

Where Moses says this to God. If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. In other words, God, if you're not gonna come with us, to the Jordan, to this new building, then don't send us. We don't want to go. We need you.

Yeah? We know this verse, don't we? Unless the Lord builds the house, to build his labor and vain. Literally, in this case, Unless the Lord builds this new building for this company, they're gonna have built it in vain. It's gonna be useless.

It's gonna be fruitless. It's gonna be good for nothing. It might be an auditorium big enough to fill them all in, but it's gonna be carved from the root. And so just be a bunch of people doing nothing. And they know that the spirit of the lord is on this man Elijah.

They seen they've seen the spirit on him. And so they effectively say to the lord through Elijah, if your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. They want the spirit of God to go with them. So they say, won't you please come with your servants? And then Elijah says, I will.

And he went with them, first of all. So they've seen an issue. They've presented the solution They've acknowledged they can't do it on their own. They've got absolutely the right attitude about growth these people. And then the third thing was understanding they've got the right understanding.

They know that growth happens only when each part of the body does its work. When everyone's pitching in. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 6 is this from him, which is Jesus, the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. Yeah? The whole body grows as each part does its work.

There's no 80 20 split here. The famous 80 20 split, 20 percent of the people doing 80 percent of the work. There's there's no bumps on seats in this company here. You know, while just ministry teams buzz around these people. In verse 2, they say, let us go to the Jordan where each of us can get a poll.

And let us build a place there to meet each of them. They're not gonna outsource this to someone else and say, well, those blokes over there, they're good at carrying poles. Each of them are gonna get involved. And now, look, I can't see Abry here, but he's an architect. I'm not an architect.

I don't know what I was gonna ask him about this, but I'm pretty sure that when you build a building, you you need lots of different types of poles figuratively, don't you? All different shapes and sizes, heights, widths. You don't just need loads of big ones. You don't just need loads of small ones. I mean, look at all the poles that we have here.

I mean, what is that about? But anyway, we've got loads of poles. You need all the poles. Not just the big poles, not just the small poles. So look, there might be some people in this company who are quite old and they can only carry a few sticks.

That's fair enough. We need a few sticks. We we might have some people who are sick. Maybe they can only make a few pegs to stick in the the poles. Yeah.

But that we need those pegs. We might just have some people who are new. Tom was talking, again, as I've mentioned, there have been people who've joined us in lockdown. Maybe they don't know how to make polls. Maybe this is the first time they've ever had to build something like this, but we can teach them how to make polls.

And you know what? There's probably others who are already doing loads in the company. You know, they're flat out working carrying loads of things already, the work that people will be able to do will vary, won't it? But the principle here is growth only happens when each part is doing its work. So Let's just check-in with how we're doing with these things.

Yeah, because we're a growing church by God's grace. So how's our perspective, first of all? Have we kept our first love? Yeah. When we're when we're doing our our ministries and we're going about work?

Are we doing it remembering why we're doing it? Why are we going to home group on a Wednesday when we're tired and exhausted? Why are we logging on to prayer meeting when the last thing you wanna do is go on Zoom again? Why am I still part of these WhatsApp groups that just ping me prayer requests every 10 minutes? And don't care about your problems.

That wasn't a personal thing that I'm trying to get off my chest. Yeah? This is why the preacher needs to preach themselves as well. We need reminding every now and again, don't we? We need to look out of the window and we have to see the Jordan.

That's why we're meeting here as a church. That's why I'm part of that WhatsApp group because God has saved and he loves that person and he wants me to pray for them. How's our perspective? How's our attitude? Are we good at spotting problems in the church.

You might be brilliant at this. I'm quite good at this. You know, that is not doing - that's done very badly, or we should probably be doing more of this. Maybe maybe you'll like that. So would you, for example, like to see a coffee lounge before or after home group?

Is that something I remember when we did of kindness week and we met for breakfast every morning, wasn't that great? I remember some people being like, why don't we do this more often? Great. Can you be the person who carries that poll? Maybe that's something you could do.

Or maybe you'd like to see a sister's actual podcast on the website. You know, the 8 0 0 1 is really good. We've got the equipment now. We know how to do it. It's a brilliant idea, but could you be the person to carry that poll?

Maybe you might have wondered why isn't it church doing more about homelessness in Kingston? It's it's quite a problem, isn't it? You can't walk down the high street without going, oh my goodness. What things have you noticed that the church does do or could do? Maybe God has placed those things on your heart because he wants you to be the 1 to carry those poles.

Could you even just make some pegs to help support that? But remember, they didn't go rogue either. They didn't just say like she did a rubbish job, so I'm gonna go and do it. They came to him. They said, what do you think of this?

They they they they came to seek counsel and and the Lord's will. So How's our attitude to grow? Finally, how's our understanding of growth? Are we each carrying a peg or a pole? Yeah.

The body is only built up as each part does its work? So Look, we at Cornerstone Church might be Arnold SVoNica when it comes to youth work. You know? This is rooted right here. That's Rory Knead.

And then this is Seoul. This is Phil and Min Smith over here holding up Seoul. And then this is Rory and Kimbell. With their army of their army of volunteers. Yeah.

We're absolutely just just stacked when it comes to youth workers at church, but you know what, if we're not doing other things and we've just got teeny tiny legs, and we're gonna fall over. We're going to be stunted in our growth. Yeah. Hopefully, that's a clear picture for you. The church grows proportionately, properly in a godly way as God wants us to grow as each part is doing its work.

So what poll or pegs are you carrying? How are we doing against this example? So there you go. That's the bit about growth. That's the example there for us.

And there's clear signs of life in this company. They're not Garazi, are they? Garazi probably wouldn't be acting like this. They're signs of life. So here's the second example to us.

Oh, no. Oh, no. How do we respond when we mess up and find ourselves in trouble? So here we go. First floor, They went to the Jordan and began to cut down trees as 1 of them was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water.

So here's a fella. He's he's a good godly brother. He's joined the others. He's grabbing a pole. He's cutting it down.

He's helping to build the new building fair play to him. He's listened to the first part of this sermon. He's got the right perspective attitude and understanding. But as he's working, as he's swinging, as he's cutting this down and as he's sweating, He does this and the hex head flies off the handle and splashes into the water behind him. And he probably is 1 of those things that you do something.

You don't realize what you've done until it's too late. And then he turns around. And by then, the river has has sort of swept the ripples downstream, so he can't even see exactly where it landed. He doesn't know exactly where it is. And and so he just thinks, oh, no.

And luckily he didn't hit anyone by the way as it swung off because he'd have a different set of problems if that had happened. But he suddenly in trouble isn't even sky. And he might actually be at fault. This might be his fault. He might have been swinging, showing off, might have seen some ladies, check out notch, I can with my Rory Knud and my fellow mims.

Yeah. He might he might be showing off and not hitting the tree properly, so it's sort of spintering and cracking and then flying off. Maybe he's neglected to check whether it's a a a a tool in working condition when he picked it up. You know, it's his responsibility to make sure his tools are in good nick. Before he starts to use them.

Maybe he couldn't even he could have even have done a a risk assessment, yeah, before he'd started this. Right? I'm gonna hit it this way. So if anything bad happens, what's behind me. Oh, the river.

He could have thought ahead. So he might, will it be a fault for this? Or He might have just been unlucky. I mean, how often does an ax head fly off the handle? I don't know.

We're not really told, but what we are told is in big, big trouble. Because in verse 5, he says, oh, no. My lord, he cried out. It was borrowed. You ever had that moment when you're using someone else's thing and it breaks or you put it down somewhere and you can't remember and they ask for it and you go, the blood light just drains from your face and this by the way is not just like borrowing a rusty little ax that you might find in the shed here just to chop some weeds back in your garden.

This is a proper piece of kit to chop down these trees by the Jordan and make sure that they're fit to to be made into a big building. This is like hiring proper machinery by today's standards. You won't find this sort of thing in your shed. Commentators actually estimate that losing this axe head is the equivalent of borrowing your mate's car. I'm just absolutely trashing it.

Just driving it being like, oh, do you mind if I borrow your car? And then just driving it into a into a a a a lamp or something? Writing it off completely thousands of pounds just chopped away at the bottom of the river. So he's probably there just doing the maths in his head. And he's figuring out, you know, I've had to borrow this, which means I'm not rich enough to own my own acts.

I haven't got enough money to pay for this. And in old testament law, you have to pay a fifth of the cost extra just for the trouble of having of having lost something. So here's this light blub blub blub blub blub of the ax head and it's sinking down And as he hears it sink, he knows that he himself is sinking into unpayable debt here and slavery. Now with Garazi fresh in our minds, we could think about what would he do. And as we think about what would he do, you might recognize yourself in what he would do.

So maybe you jump straight in after the ax. Yeah. I don't know where it went, but I'm just gonna go for it like splash and try and find it hours trying to look, you know, how many of us revert to that. So this is a problem. We're like, just just jump in and fix it.

Don't even think, don't even pray, don't ask for help. Just, you know, we'll just go and do it ourselves. Or secondly, you might lie. Maybe you look around and go, oh, no. And spot a spare ax head just lying on the floor and go and stick it on and and and hope that that the owner doesn't notice.

That by the way is like their stories are used to hear at school all the time. Where your mate would come back from holiday and go. My hamster looks quite different to how I remember it looking. It's grown like a whole sort of dark patch on its right hand side, and it's a lot smaller. Yeah.

And the people who were looking after are like, thirdly, maybe you blame someone else, you know, instead of accepting the debt on yourself. You you go back to the ax holder and you say, excuse me, why on earth did you loan me at all that it was not fit for purpose? I'm not to blame here. This isn't my fault. This is your fault.

Well, finally, maybe you just steal it. You don't mess up. You go quiet. You block that number. You avoid them for the rest of your life.

Yeah. Do you recognize yourself in any of those? Interestingly, that's exactly how Adam responded in the Garden of Eden, isn't it? So when Adam and Eve ate the fruit and they realized they were naked, first thing they did was try to cover themselves up, try to fix the problem themselves. And then they hid, they didn't mess up, they tried to avoid speaking to God, And then lastly, Adam blamed Eve.

And we have to recognize ourselves in Adam, and we have to recognize knives ourselves in Kahazi. That's exactly the instinct that we have when we don't know there's an outside solution to this mess. When we forget that there's someone out there who can help us. We try to fix it. We hide.

We blame someone else. We lie. But the servant in this story is different, and this is why such a great example for us because he hears the splash, His face drains of color, he does the maths, and he turns straight away and runs to the prophet and cries out oh, no, my lord. It was borrowed. I've made a mistake.

I can't save myself here. I mean, a debt. I can't afford. I can't fit it. I can't hide from the owner and I can't blame anyone else.

You're all there looking at me doing it. I can't say it with someone else's fault, but I know you can help. I know you can help. And what does the prophet say? The man of God asked, where did it fall?

When he showed in the place, Elijah cut a stick and threw it in there, made the iron float. So we have the total wrong idea about god when we worry about crying out to him. If we think God's not gonna wanna hear my cry, why would I've messed up here? I don't wanna God's gonna be like, what are you doing for goodness sake? I've already got you out of this mess 3 4 times before.

But just like the widow and the Sumna might woman, Elijah is desperate. He's desperate to help those people who cry out. How can it help? He said in other stories. What can I do?

What have you got? He said in other stories. But here, where did it fall? Where did it fall? Show me show me where it fell.

And immediately, he loves to stick into the water, and the iron ax head floats to the top, and it bobbs around on the surface. Amazing. Now this is reminiscent of another Moses story, this time in Exodus 15, when the Israelites are in the wilderness, and they're complaining because they found a body of water, but it's bitter to drink. They're thirsty. They need to drink some water, but the water they have is awful.

And Moses in that story cries out to the Lord and the Lord shows Moses a piece of wood which he throws into the water and it's fit to drink. And the expressions for crying out and throwing the stick in the water are exactly the same in Hebrew in both of these stories. So when we see here, this server crying out and some wood being thrown into the water. We're meant to remember the wood thrown in the water which is God's sign of deliverance to Israel. We're meant to This is what the bible does.

It says, yeah. Yeah. Remember? Remember, any ringing any bells, any flags coming up here. But here, rather than being assigned for the nation, which it was with Moses, just this single random unnamed bloke experiences this incredible delivering power of God just for himself.

As this ax head sort of like bubbles to the surface and pops up, he goes, his debt is repaid. His mistake is covered. His status is regained. The lord of Israel who who made water fit for to drink for the whole nation is a lord and savior of him. God is prepared.

I was thinking about this. God is prepared to defy the laws of gravity. The laws of buoyancy that he is written into this world, he's prepared to go in and and and unpick them to let this little ax head bob up just for this bloke. No 1 else would really be bothered by this. I don't think most other No 1 else would really benefit from this, but for this bloke.

When he saw this eye and pop up, he knew god cares about me. It's not just a story about god doing something for people a long time ago, look how God cares for me. He's prepared to move heaven and earth because I cried out to him. So it's difficult not to immediately start jumping into drawing comparisons with ourselves. And I'm not going to go as far as to say that the accent in the story exactly represents our sin.

And this is a picture about baptism, you know, going down into the water and then coming up again. But I think surely surely God is giving us a picture of something here to show us something about Christ. And so it is true to say that the iron lump of our sin has sunk us to the bottom of the river. We are in debt to god is how the bible talks about our state. We've got a payment that we could never repay god and so we're slaves to sin.

We are in exactly the same position as this bloke with the handle left in his hands as the as the iron head flew off and he realizes what's happened to him because we've played around with our lives. We've not used our lives properly. We have tried to cover ourselves up, haven't we? And fix the problem ourselves. We've tried to blame other people for what we are like We don't take responsibility and we have lied to ourselves and to God, and we've denied sometimes that there's a problem at all.

Maybe even in this very moment, are you right now trying to fix some of the issues in your own heart. Can you think, wow. Yeah, I am. I'm trying to fix that myself. Maybe I'm trying to make it up to God myself.

Are you blaming someone else? For your problems. Well, I'm only like this because they make me like this. Are you deceiving yourselves, maybe denying that the problem is not that bad? You know actually, you see a problem in me, but I don't see a problem in me.

It's easier to see the issue, isn't it? When you're holding just a handle with coax head. That bloke pretty clearly saw he was in trouble. It's an outward problem. And unfortunately, we don't always have that.

It would be good. Wouldn't it, I think? And I think actually God in his kindness sometimes allows us to see the the handle without the ax head. He allows us to see it, so we're looking at it. It's a bright and clear as day.

Oh, no. And maybe he does that through suffering the consequences of our sins. You know, we suffer. We we suddenly are sin overflows and it affects people, and we see the effect sometimes just someone calls us out and that's God showing us the handle without the eye and head on it. And sometimes we just we just realize ourselves and we're doing the math in our head.

God in his kindness draws our attention to this problem because the truth is we've all sunk like iron to the very pit of life itself. We are all this bloke holding this handle in our hands. We're all in debt to God. And, you know, we would continue to sink forever into the depths of hell, if it were not for the fact that we have sunk in the Jordan. Yeah?

Which is the river of god's deliverance. And better than Elijah standing there to cry out to, we have Jesus to cry out to. See, more amazingly than making an ax head flow. I was having a discussion with Alex Waterworth. I text him.

He's my scientist like You know that Boris has got a scientific adviser. Yeah. Alex Waterworth is my scientific adviser when I want to know something scientific. And so I asked him, and we were talking about how would this flow? And he was saying, well, maybe it was to do with the water.

Maybe and maybe it was to do with the density of the iron. Don't know. And we were like, well, what about Jesus walking on water. Did God do the same thing then? And we were just like getting quite excited.

But anyway, more amazingly than this sort of unnatural thing where this iron heavy thing floated, more amazing than that, is the fact that Jesus, who is God's son, somehow became a man to die in our place. Yeah. The the incarnation is infinitely more impressive than what god has done here. So Jesus, who is this uncreated 1, took on a created nature, this 1 who is immortal, took on mortality, the 1 who is spotless took our sins upon himself, the judge of all took, the judgment on himself. So Jesus on the cross became sin for us.

He sunk to the depths to raise us up so we could live. Now, this man interestingly wouldn't have known that detail. Would he? But he would have known this in Psalm 18. In my distress, I called upon the Lord, I cried to God for help.

From his temple, he heard my voice, and I cried for his help. Reached his ears. So this this guy knew, if you cry out to Yahoo! He saves, not just nations, but individuals. So I said at the start, there's there's only 1 type of person in this world, sinners.

You, me, Gahazi, the servant. But there are 2 types of sinners, those who cry out and are heard by Jesus and are saved, and those who remain silent like the Kahazi. So I want to ask you, which 1 are you? Have you cried out to Godgett? Or are you still trying to fix the problem yourself and try to hide, do you deny.

I just want to finish quickly, very quickly by making this point because it's quite interesting. Lift it out. In verse 7, Elijah says, lift it out, and the man reached out his hand and took it. So you know the expression you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The same with the preacher.

I can explain to you that you need to cry out to God and that God can provide a way to save you through Jesus Christ. But It's entirely possible for this bloke to have seen this thing pop up in the water, pop up and down and then just go out now, you're right. And walked away. Wouldn't that have been mental of him? That would have been crazy of him.

Isn't it the same for us? The offer of forgiveness for our sins is on the table in in Christ Jesus. Won't you lift it out? Take it with both your hands? And then finally, Christian.

You've heard from this pulpit before that if you fall you're in Graceland, And what that means is if you're falling, if you're crumpled on a sort of ball on the floor and you're falling in sin again, you're in Graceland. You're in the land of the king. Well, here's another picture for you. If you sink, you've sunk in the Jordan. Yeah?

This river that God dries up for his people to safely pass through. This river that he splits so that Elijah can go over and remind people of his salvation the river that he bobbed this axe head up in, so it floats on the surface. If you sink Christian, cry out to God and remember you've sunk into Jordan. God can save you. So let's be like the servant, let's let's turn and cry out to Jesus and he'll save us.

Let me pray. Father, we thank you for this story, for this bloke, for your amazing provision for him, that you would alter the laws of gravity to save him. And father, you've done something much more amazing in sending your son to die on the cross for our sins, help us not to be like Khahazi to try and fix the problem ourselves. Cause us please to cry out to you like this servant straight away. Oh, no.

Help. I would pray this in Jesus' name, all men.