2 Kings 2 and 4: Elisha, a Word of Life in Dark Days

Introduction

"These are not dark days. These are great days." Winston Churchill spoke those words in 1941, two years into the Second World War, with Europe occupied and Russia invaded. He wanted to lift people's spirits. But given what we now know about the horrors of that conflict, the preacher admits, such bravado sounds almost blind.

How does Scripture speak, with both hope and realism, when God's people go through dark days? In your personal life, in your spiritual life, or when the state of your country and the world seems to be darkening? That is the question raised by this message, preached at Summer Hill Church in Australia as part of a series on the book of Kings.

The stories are strange, sometimes baffling: water healed with salt, two bears, a poisoned stew. But they speak directly to this question. God does not dress up Israel's dark days: he sends a prophet, Elisha, whose word brings life. And that prophet points to someone greater than himself.

Message Outline

1. God Does Not Do It Like Churchill

At the start of the book of Kings, the anointing of Solomon seemed to open Israel's golden age. In reality, his kingdom was a house of cards, and it collapsed in the very next generation.
The spiritual failure of the kings plunged the people into their darkest days, to the point that even the great prophet Elijah sank into deep discouragement.
The book of Kings embellishes nothing. God does not present these dark days as great days in disguise. He commands the anointing of two saviors: Elisha, a prophet who will speak words of life, and Jehu, a king who will carry out judgment.
The week before, Elisha had received a double portion of Elijah's spirit. The question for this Sunday: what will he do with that power?

2. Jericho: Healed Water, a Curse Lifted

Back from the wilderness, Elisha crosses the Jordan again and enters Jericho. The people tell him the city is well situated, but "the water is bad, and the land is barren" (2 Kings 2:19).
He throws salt into the spring and declares: "Yahweh says, 'I have healed these waters.'" The word translated "healed" in verse 22 is the same as "heal."
This is not the healing of a sick person, it is the healing of a city. Ever since Israel entered the land with Joshua, about six hundred years earlier, Jericho had been a cursed city (Joshua 6:26).
A handful of salt, the word of God, and life returns. Not just for a moment: "to this day." From Elisha's very first step in the land, his word brings life.

3. The Mockers of Bethel: Rejecting the Word of Life

On the road to Bethel, a gang of youths mocks Elisha: "Go up, you baldy!" Then two bears come out of the woods and maul forty-two of them. The passage is baffling and leaves many questions.
We often picture small children, but the word used can refer to anyone from newborns to young men on the threshold of adulthood. The preacher thinks this was a threatening gang of young men.
Elijah was known as a hairy man (2 Kings 1:8). Elisha has just watched his master being taken up over his head. Calling him "baldy" is not about his hairline: it is saying "what are you worth without Elijah?" and denying that he has any spiritual authority at all.
Hosea 13 seems to allude to this kind of scene: God is compared to a bear robbed of her cubs. Hosea ties this threat to the worship of Baal and the golden calf, practiced at Bethel itself. The image is of God coming in fury to protect his people, left vulnerable by idolatry.
By despising the prophet, these youths despise the life and healing that God offers through his word. "One who believes in the Son has eternal life, but one who disobeys the Son won't see life" (John 3:36). To reject the one who speaks words of life is to lose access to that life.
But unlike Elisha, Jesus agreed to bear the curse himself on the cross. And to the mockery, he answered: "Father, forgive them" (Luke 23:34). His ability to speak God's healing and grace goes far beyond anything Elisha could do.

4. The Widow's Oil: Where God Directs His Compassion

In chapter 4, Elisha's actions strikingly resemble those of Jesus. The Gospel of Luke wants us to notice this comparison, which is often skimmed over.
The wife of one of Elisha's disciples cries out to him: her husband is dead, and the creditor is coming to take her two sons as slaves. If anyone is going through dark days, it is she. All she has left is a small jar of oil.
Elisha has her borrow every empty jar from her neighbors. The small supply is enough to fill them all, pay the debt, and keep the household going afterward.
This story is not a promise that God will bless our wildest business schemes. It shows where God's compassion goes in dark days: "who executes justice for the oppressed [...] He upholds the fatherless and widow, but the way of the wicked he turns upside down" (Psalm 146:7-9).
This is even truer of Jesus: he denounces those who devour widows' houses (Luke 20:47), he assures us that God hears the widow who persists (Luke 18:1-8), and he gives a widow back her only son (Luke 7:11-17).
The preacher speaks for himself: in hard times, it is easy to forget the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner while busy securing our own safety. Yet the widow's neighbors shared the little they had, even if only empty jars.
The neighbors are not the widow's savior: it is God who provides the oil. You don't have to save the world, a task far beyond you. But when your neighbor knocks at your door, does the value they have in God's eyes guide your response?

5. Death in the Pot: God Can Redeem Our Foolishness

It is famine. Elisha's servant gathers wild gourds that no one recognizes, puts them in the stew, and the sons of the prophets cry out: "Man of God, there is death in the pot!" (2 Kings 4:40).
The preacher smiles: the first rule of foraging is not to eat what you don't recognize. On a recent drive through South Australia with his brother, he saw strange fruit by the roadside and wondered whether it was edible. They did not try it.
These prophets show no discernment. Deuteronomy describes God's people with this same foolishness (Deuteronomy 29:18; 32:32): like a forager who eats any bitter root, Israel feeds on any god it happens to meet along the way.
It is often in the darkest days that foolishness comes most easily: "I know I shouldn't, but it can't get any worse." And we abandon God's wisdom to feed on what turns to death in our mouths.
Elisha throws a little flour into the pot, and nothing harmful remains. In the same way, God can redeem the most bitter taste of our past follies, if we return to his word. No folly is greater than Israel running after other gods, and yet God can bring even that back to life.
Jesus still calls us to discernment about what we feed our spiritual hunger on: "Don't work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life." "I am the bread of life" (John 6:27, 35).

6. Twenty Loaves of Barley: Jesus, the Anointed One Who Speaks Life

A man brings Elisha twenty loaves of barley. "How can I set this before a hundred people?" asks the servant. Elisha answers: "They will eat, and will have some left over" (2 Kings 4:43). And that is what happens, according to the word of Yahweh.
Those who saw Jesus feed five thousand men with five loaves, not twenty, could not miss the resemblance. Right afterward, Jesus asks: "Who do the multitudes say that I am?" They answer: John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the old prophets. Peter declares: "The Christ of God" (Luke 9:20).
"Christ" or "Messiah" means "anointed." Kings, priests, and prophets were anointed. For the preacher, Peter is not contradicting the crowd, he is sharpening and amplifying what they sense: you are not just one of the prophets, you are the one God has appointed to bring the light of life to this darkened world.
Jesus fulfills what the prophets could only sketch. He continues to speak God's living word in a world still darkened by sin and mockery, by death and debt, by the bitterness of our past follies, a world where what we have to offer is never quite enough.
He is not only God's anointed King. He is also the one who, like a prophet, speaks the word of life to those groaning in the hardest days. "Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68).
In the closing prayer, the preacher gives thanks for the one who called Lazarus out of the tomb (John 11:43-44) and who will one day call us, too, out of the darkness of the grave.

Key Takeaways

God does not disguise dark days as great days: he sends his word into them, and that word brings life.
To despise the one who carries God's word is to deprive yourself of the life it offers. Jesus, for his part, bore the curse and prayed for those who mocked him.
In dark days, God's compassion goes out to the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. Your heart can line up with his without you becoming anyone's savior.
No past folly is beyond the reach of God's redemption, if you return to his word.
Jesus is the Anointed One: he fulfills what Elisha foreshadowed, and he has the words of eternal life.

Personal Application

What dark days are you going through right now, in your personal life, your spiritual life, or in the news? Which words do you turn to in order to hold on?
Is there a word of God that you mock or keep at a distance because it disturbs you?
When you are under pressure, who do you forget to see around you? What "empty jar" could you lend this week?
Is there a past folly you think you will carry the mark of forever? What does the image of flour thrown into the pot change for you?
If Jesus asked you today, "And you, who do you say that I am?", what would you answer?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Elisha curse the young men of Bethel?

The word translated "children" can refer to young men on the threshold of adulthood. By shouting "baldy," they mock Elisha, left without his master Elijah, the hairy man: they deny his authority as a prophet. Bethel was the site of the golden calf, and Hosea 13 presents God as a bear protecting her cubs. To reject the one who carries the word of life is to lose access to that life.

What connection does the Bible make between Elisha and Jesus?

Elisha feeds a hundred men with twenty loaves of barley, and Jesus feeds five thousand men with five loaves. Right afterward, Peter confesses that Jesus is "the Christ of God," that is, the Anointed One. According to the preacher, Peter does not correct the crowd who see Jesus as a prophet: he goes further. Jesus fulfills what the prophets could only sketch.

What does the story of the widow's oil teach us in 2 Kings 4?

It is not a promise that God will bless our reckless ventures. The story shows where God's compassion goes in dark days: toward the widow, the orphan, and the oppressed (Psalm 146:7-9). The neighbors lend their jars, but it is God who provides the oil. We are not the saviors of the world, but our hearts can line up with God's.