I invite you to turn to two places in your Bible this morning. First to Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5, beginning at verse 12. You'll find that on page 1094 in most of the Pew Bibles. Romans chapter 5. And I want you to put a marker there. Your finger, a piece of paper. We're going to come back to it in the middle of the sermon, but I want you to have it when we do. And then I want you to turn to our text for this morning, 2 Kings chapter 4. 2 Kings chapter 4, beginning in verse 38. You'll find that on page 359 in most pew Bibles. 2 Kings chapter 4. And as you're turning, share something with me that you don't know. My favorite thing about holidays might surprise you. As much as I like family and friends around my table and the great meal that we share together and the nap that I usually get afterwards, there's something I actually enjoy more. And that's the leftovers. Turkey and cranberry sandwiches. Stuffing and gravy. A little extra pie and ice cream. You know your favorites. Leftovers are a great thing. Now, children, you may not think leftovers are so great. But just one day you'll see how great they are. You'll understand them for what they really are. They're the tasty reminders that you have been provided with more than enough to eat. We tend to take leftovers for granted in our day because preparing a meal is just as quick as going to the freezer if we don't have to go to the store. Some meals require time, especially holiday meals, but none of them take as much time as it does for many people in this world who, like in the time of Israel, spend much of their day gathering and preparing a meal. Each and every day, the people of Israel spent much of their day gathering their food for a meal. And if there isn't enough to gather, there isn't enough to eat. If there isn't enough to eat, then there's what we call a famine. And children, you know what a famine looks like when you see the pictures of children in magazines and on the television that show them starving. There's not enough to eat. Because during a famine, there's no such thing as leftovers. Unless the Lord intervenes. In our two-part story this morning, our text begins with famine. And it ends with leftovers. And it serves as an object lesson from the ministry of Elisha that was not just for the company of prophets who experienced it that day. It was recorded in Scripture. Out of all the events of Elisha's life, this one was selected to be recorded in Scripture. And it was written specifically and firstly to Judah in exile some 200 years later to help them understand why they were there. And it's been passed down to us today. for it has instruction for us as well. And the purpose of this story is to display the truth that the Lord provides more than enough. And when he does it, he does it to his hungering people, by his gracious Savior, and he does it of his bread of life. So as we read this story this morning, and as I preach this word of God to you, Each of the points that I've just mentioned will be developed in that way. I will tell you, we'll consider how it applied to the prophets at Gilgal, how it applied to Judah in exile, and how it applies to us today. Through this story, God calls his people in every age to repent, to repent of discontentment with his provision, and to rejoice in the abundance that is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord. Hear now the word of God from 2 Kings 4, beginning in verse 38. Elisha returned to Gilgal, and there was a famine in that region. While the company of the prophets was meeting with him, he said to his servant, Put on the large pot and cook some stew for these men. One of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine. He gathered some of its gourds and filled the fold of his cloak. When he returned, he cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were. Stew was poured out for the men, but as they began to eat it, they cried out, O man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat it. Elisha said, Get some flour. He put it into the pot and said, Serve it to the people to eat. And there was nothing harmful in the pot. And a man came from Baal, Shalisha, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain along with some heads of new grain. Give it to the people to eat, Elisha said. How can I set this before a hundred men, his servant asked. But Elisha answered, Give it to the people to eat, for this is what the Lord says, They will eat and have some left over. Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord. Here ends the reading of God's word. People of God, as we consider this story today, this two-part story, the first thing we want to consider is the setting. We want to consider from the story how the Lord's provision is given to his hungering people. It begins with Elisha returning to Gilgal. And there was a famine in that region. Gilgal, if you recall, is very near the Jordan River. In fact, it's on an oasis in the river valley of the Jordan. A very fertile and wet place. A place that even to this day is rich in crops. But at the time of Elisha, the land was under famine. The land was not producing its food even at Gilgal. A place of great fertility. And why is that significant? It's in this story for a reason. It's significant because it reminds us that at that time, the northern kingdom of Israel was under the judgment of God. We've considered this before. The timing of this story, the timing of Elisha's ministry, is when the kings of Israel are leading their people astray. As a people, they turned away from God. And they had turned themselves to worship golden calves at Bethel and at Dan, idols set before them by their kings. And the worship of false gods, including the Canaanite god Baal, had gone on for so long that it had become the norm. It was natural. It's what people did. And so the Lord sent Elijah first and then Elisha to confront the kings and the people, to judge the kings actually, and to call the people to repentance. But they refused to repent, and the Lord brought upon them the curses that he had promised to bring upon disobedience in his land among his people. Curses to discipline them. We find the litany of those curses in Deuteronomy chapter 28, and if you haven't read those in a while, it's a humbling and horrifying litany of what God would bring upon his people in Israel when they rebelled against him. But verses 16 through 19 there sum it up very nicely for us. The Lord said you will be cursed in the city and you'll be cursed in the country. Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. In other words, your means of producing bread to eat will be cursed. The fruit of your womb will be cursed. The crops of your land, the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. And you will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. There will be no escape. And in the history of Israel, over and over, the Lord visited them with these curses to discipline them and to turn them back to him. And over and over, he showed them mercy when they called on him to be saved. But over time, from this story and moving forward, from this time forward, they continued to decline, disobeying more and more, repenting less and less, until finally the Lord had them pushed out of the land. Assyria took them and scattered them to the winds, and they never came back. And in the meantime, Judah to the south was watching all this, like watching an older brother who's being disciplined, and watching and supposed to be learning. And they didn't learn. And 200 years later, the Lord did the same thing to them. And cast them out of the land into exile in Babylon. Now these judgments of God against Israel were against a nation. And therefore the people of God, the believers in God, true believers, were not exempt from the effects. even the company of prophets at Gilgal were suffering under this famine now they were set apart from the rest of the people because as a community of faith they had a hunger that the others did not have they had a hunger a spiritual hunger for God and for his word and he sustained them on that in this community they sustained themselves on the word and Elisha the prophet came on his circuit and he instructed them and led them but at the same time they shared the physical hunger that their neighbors had their stomachs growled for food and the Lord also provided for this hunger in our story this morning we read in verse 38 that Elisha acted while the company of the prophets was meeting with him Elisha said to his servant put on the large pot and cook some stew for these men they would be fed but I don't believe this stew that's referred to in our NIV is what I think of as stew. I think of stew as lots of meat and potatoes and onions and spices that are simmered and delicious that taste great going in and they satisfy me once they've gone down. And most likely is that the soup that they had that day was a bean soup. A boiled bunch of lentils. Something like the pottage that Jacob gave to Esau when he traded him his birthright. Very nutritious, to be sure, but not necessarily the tastiest stuff in the world. But through it, the Lord would provide what they needed. He would sustain their lives. He would satisfy their hunger, even though it might not satisfy their appetite. You know how it is when you get to the dinner table, children, and you want something specific for dinner, and that's not what's served? It's still served for your good, even though your appetite might not be satisfied. Well, this is the situation of the story. And as this situation unfolds, the events are put down in the book of Kings to tell another people, in another time, about themselves. See, it was written primarily to Judah, who, when the door hit them on the backside as they were being ushered out of the land, they finally woke up and asked themselves, Why is it, how is it that we, the chosen people of God, have been pushed out of our own land? What went wrong? And this book of Kings helped give them the 20-20 hindsight to look back and to see that it was their sins that drove them out. That it was their sin that brought them to this misery. It was not that God had failed them. It's not that he had not provided. He provided all that they needed in the land. They had failed him and grown discontent with his provision and followed after their own appetites. And the story in the book of Kings has been passed down to us today. And through it, the Lord continues to instruct us and encourage us for the life that we live under the curse against the sin of Adam. Yes, we've been redeemed by grace. We're free from the curse of sin, but we still live under the effects. we still have spiritual hungers we still have physical hungers we still have difficulties in this world and as a community of faith set apart in Christ we hunger for the word thank God and he gives it to us he feeds us by it week after week the word is preached regularly we partake of the sacraments all of which feed our spiritual hunger even this evening Lord willing we'll gather again around the word preached and we'll gather around the table of our Lord and be fed satisfied for our spiritual hunger. Now looking again at the story, the stage has been set. There's famine in the land. Even the people of God are suffering and God has provided all that they need. But the story continues in a surprising way that makes it clear that it's only by His gracious Savior that the Lord provides for His people. By the word of Elisha, the Lord had provided the company with a pot of food to eat. But even as it was cooking, we read in verse 39, one of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine. He gathered some of its gourds and filled the fold of his cloak. When he returned, he cut them up into the pot of stew, though now no one knew what they were. Something about the stew that day left this one man wanting more. to satisfy his appetite. And so he got up and he went looking for something to spice it up. There were no crops in the field, so he went out into the open fields, the wild lands, and he looked for herbs. And as he was looking, he found a plant that, by all descriptions, was a beautiful plant. In a parson-barren land, it looks like a cucumber vine, its big, rich green leaves and bright orange gourds. It was attractive. He obviously did not know what it was, But it sure looked good, so he took the gourds and he brought it back and he put it in the stew. Now at the end of verse 39, we're presented with a little bit of a difficulty. Not a lot, but a little. The NIV and most others translate it to mean that as he did this, this whole process of getting up and going and coming back and putting everything in the pot was done even though no one knew what it was he was putting in. That they were somehow aware that he had done this thing, that they were aware of what he was doing, that they watched him, but they really didn't know what he was putting into the pot. I think that says too much, and the English Standard Version follows the Hebrew text and the Greek translation better, which simply says that the others didn't know. They did not know. They did not know what this man had done. We know because the narrator tells us, which is a normal way of telling stories in the Bible. We've heard this before. Remember when we considered the widow who poured out the oil. She went behind closed doors and locked them. And yet we were able to see what happened there. We saw the same thing when Elisha raised the Shunammite son from the dead. He went behind closed doors and yet we were privileged to look in and to see. And the same thing here. We see what they didn't see. Because according to verse 40, they only realized they were in danger when they began to eat. Now, we don't know whether it was the bitter taste of the fruit or whether it was the effects of the poison on their body. But they cried out, there's death in the pot. There's death in the pot. And they could not eat it. Now, it's interesting to note, they didn't point fingers at anybody. They didn't look for someone to blame. They didn't look at this man and say, what did you do? They didn't know. But they knew that they were in trouble. They recognized that they had been poisoned, that there was death in the pot. and yet, immediately, they turned with faith and expectation to Elisha. O man of God, there's death in the pot. And Elisha acts. And he acts to save. And in verse 41, he called for some flour, and that day a priceless commodity, and he put it into the pot and he said, serve it to the people to eat, and there was nothing harmful in the pot. Just that quickly. Now, we need to know it's not the flour that healed the stew, any more than it was the salt that healed the water at Jericho. But it is a fitting and appropriate sign of the grace of God that was shown to those people through Elisha, their prophet. God acted through him as his gracious Savior, Elisha, which means God is salvation. And through Elisha, the Lord intervened to save them all from the death that had come upon them through the actions of one. Now, our text does not call this man's actions sins. It just tells us what he did. But if we compare what he did with James' description of how sin develops in our lives in James 1, verses 14-15, I don't think we can call it anything else. James says that each of us is tempted when by his own evil desire he's dragged away and enticed. Then after desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it's full grown, gives birth to death. This one man wanted more than what God had provided for them. So he went out to look for more. And as he looked, he saw, and what he saw enticed him, and he liked it, and he took it, and he brought it back, and he gave it to everyone. Through the sin of this one man, death came to all the prophets. But through the intervention of one man, Elisha, life came to all the prophets. Now again, this story serves as a living parable to the exiles in Babylon. It tells them a story to which they can relate. And it plainly reveals the reasons why they have been cast out of the land. You see, the Lord had provided them with everything they needed in the promised land, above and beyond all that they could ask or imagine. He'd even given them himself to live with them. In their presence. Even so, the kings of Israel and Judah followed after their own appetites. And they followed after the appetites of the people. And they were looking for something more than what the Lord had given them. And they turned away from the Lord their God and they followed other gods that served their appetites. They grew discontent with God. Discontent with His law that was everywhere reminding them that they were sinners and that they needed God to save them. That they couldn't be right by themselves. And they needed God to strengthen them to pursue lives of holiness that conformed to his will. That reminded them everywhere. And they didn't like it. They were discontent with it. And so they followed their appetites to Baal and Asherah and other pagan gods who looked good and maybe even tasted good because they gave them license to do whatever they wanted to do. And it indulged their senses. It was pleasing. And the people of Israel and Judah had eaten. and they'd eaten without question, and they had poisoned themselves to death. Death that carried them to a faraway country. And through this story, the Word of God encouraged them to cry out like the prophets in faith to their Savior, to the God of their salvation who had promised them a Messiah who would come and deliver them once and for all and satisfy them with everything forever. And this living parable comes to us today as a warning. As a warning against the idolatry of our own hearts. This comes to us naturally. It comes to us from our father Adam who in the garden was enticed by Satan. He was enticed by Satan to disobey the God that had put him there and told him not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Or on that day he would die. The devil didn't make him do it. We need to know this. There was something in Adam that was discontent. And he followed that enticement and he acted and he decided to choose for himself rather than to listen and obey the will of God. In like manner, it's our discontent with what the Lord has provided for us in Jesus Christ that opens the way for us to sin by seeking after our own appetites, by seeking to gain control, by seeking to housebreak God, to live by our rules. We begin when we ask, did God really say? Did he really say? And when we convince ourselves that he didn't, or we convince ourselves that he didn't really mean it, then there's death in the pot. There's death in the pot. By God's grace, we'll taste it early and we will immediately repent, we'll turn to Christ, cry out to be saved, and he is faithful and he's just to forgive us our sins and to bring us back to himself and to give us again contentment with that which he has for us. But we know that this is not always the case. We know that sometimes it takes a long time before we realize that we've been poisoned. We settle for cheap imitations of what God has already given us in Jesus Christ. We seek for peace from a pill rather than His peace that passes understanding. We settle for confidence from a bottle rather than confidence that is ours because in Christ, God is for us. Who can be against us? We look for intimacy and pornography and sexual immorality in every place except where God has given it to us in marriage, which of course is a picture of our intimacy with Christ, our husband. And we measure our worth by our assets and our appearances rather than by the treasures and the glory of Christ, which are ours in him through faith. We forget his provision and we seek after our appetites. And the list that I could give you is as long as this room. Discontent is what drives us to the enticements that will draw us and will put death in the pot. And when we live according to our appetites, our Heavenly Father who does love us will discipline us with the consequences of our sin until we learn once again, and hopefully once and for all, that He is the only one who can and who will provide all that we need. for body and soul, in life and in death. And he does so by his gracious Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord. That's what we're to learn by the discipline of our Father. So if there is death in your pot today, turn to Christ, confess, repent, call out to him to save you from yourself, from your appetites. And in him, as you reflect on him and seek him and focus on him, You will be renewed and reminded of what is already true. He's already earned for you everything by his life and his death and his resurrection and his ascension in your place. You've been freed from sin and death. And you've been granted every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. There is no need for these appetites. Our story today, particularly these verses 39 through 41, illustrate the truth that Paul hammers home in Romans chapter 5. That's why I had you mark it. And I want you to turn there now because we're going to read from it. In chapter 5, Paul contrasts, especially in our text, the effects of the sin of Adam that brought death to us. To the intervention and saving work of Christ which brings life to us. And we can see how this story is a fitting illustration, a fitting model for what he says here. And as we read this, we must remember, the assurance of pardon we had this morning was from chapter 5, verses 1 to 11, which tell us the fact of our status, that we are reconciled to God in Christ, that we have all his blessings, that this is already true. And so therefore, picking up at verse 12, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, And in this way, death came to all men because all sinned. For before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking the commandment, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, How much more did God's grace and the gifts that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to many? Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin. The judgment followed one's sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, How much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ? Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous. now the law was added so that trespass might increase but where sin increased grace increased all the more so that just as sin reigned in death so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord as bad as the sin is that brought death to all so much greater is the grace that Christ gives to his people he gives more than enough he gives more than enough and He does so by His gracious Savior. We turn again to our story, 2 Kings chapter 4. And we turn there to see what it is that God provides through faith that gives this life to the dead. And there we see that He acts by His gracious Savior to provide more than enough of His bread of life as if what the Lord had already provided wasn't enough or perhaps it wasn't clear enough the story continues in verse 42 probably not the same day but it is the same story a man came from Baal, Shalisha bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain along with some heads of new grain here's a man that appears in scripture for one verse all we know about him is that he came from a town called Baal Shalisha and they brought with him some barley loaves and some heads of grain and then he disappears and the way we read stories we skip right over that but what a profound testimony of God's provision for his people in the situation that we've been considering this man who was from a town that obviously supported Baal worship The town was named after him, for goodness sake. He came from this town, dedicated to Baal, and he came as a man who had been granted faith. The Lord spiritually provided for him a faith that saved him. And in the midst of a famished land that was under God's judgment, that was producing no crops, he gave this man a crop to feed him physically. Now, human nature being what it is to get something in the midst of nothing is to tempt us to hoard and to put away and to save for tomorrow and to keep to ourselves. But this man had faith and he knew where this gift had come from. It had come from God. And he knew that as a believer in God, God called on him as an Israelite to bring to him his firstfruits to show and to proclaim his thanksgiving to God. And this is what he does. By faith and with thanksgiving, this man brought a grain offering to the Lord. Prescribed in Leviticus chapter 2. If you bring a grain offering baked in an oven, you may bring them to the Lord as an offering of the first fruits. If you bring a grain offering of first fruits to the Lord, offer crushed heads of new grain roasted in the fire. That's what this man brought. Loaves of bread and new grain. This offering belonged to the Lord by law. but the Lord had promised this firstfruits to his priests. We need to remember, in the land of Israel, the priests had no inheritance. They didn't get a piece of land to pass on from generation to generation. But what they did get is what the people gave to God. In Numbers chapter 18, beginning in verse 12, the Lord said to Aaron, the high priest, from whom all priests descended, I give you, and therefore all your family, all the finest, All the finest olive oil, all the finest new wine and grain, the people give the Lord as the firstfruits of their harvest. All the land's firstfruits that you bring to the Lord will be yours. Everyone in your household who is ceremonially clean may eat it. Everything in Israel that is devoted to the Lord is yours. And so this man brought this firstfruits offering to the Lord. But there was no priest to receive it. the Baal worship of the land had become so pervasive the kings had driven out the priests. There were no priests of the Lord in the land. And so this man brought it to the prophet of God. It's not according to the law, but it was evidently acceptable because Elisha took it. And Elisha used it as a priest and he gave it to his household. They are all considered clean. And they were able to eat of the first fruits that belonged to the Lord. Now his servant balked a little bit when he saw a hundred hungry faces and only enough food for twenty. He said, how am I supposed to do this? And Elisha spurred him on and he promised him from God's word that they will eat and there will be some left over. And so he acted in faith. He looked beyond what his eyes could see and he served the food and they ate it and they had some left over. According to the word of the Lord. The Lord provided more than enough of his bread, his bread of life. By his gracious Savior, the Lord gave the firstfruits that belonged to him, to this community of prophets, to sustain their bodies and to encourage their souls from famine to leftovers. The Lord provides more than enough. And that's the story of the prophets of Gilgal. And it's a story that contained this miracle that served, again, Judah in exile to teach them what they had forgotten. That the Lord had always provided for them the bread of life. From the very beginning, when he took them out of Egypt and they were headed through the wilderness, he took them to the promised land and at the border he said, It's for you, send your spies in, take it. They sent the spies and they came back. Great place, overflowing with milk and honey. But there's these people there. The Lord had provided all that they needed to take that land. All they needed to do was believe him and do it. But they didn't. They were discontent with that provision. They didn't like the idea of a fight. And so they said no. And therefore, there was poison in the pot. And that death in the pot took 40 years to kill that whole generation, except for Joshua and Caleb. It took 40 years to work its way through that people. But during that time, the Lord provided manna from heaven six days a week in order to sustain his people, until the next generation came up, and they trusted, and they obeyed, and they entered the land. This miracle in this story reminded the people of Judah of that truth, that the Lord had provided them with the bread of heaven. He was their sustenance, and that they would turn to him in faith as their provider. And when we read this story today, we can't help but think of Jesus. Jesus feeding the multitudes with just a few loaves and a few fishes. Elisha announced a miracle that the Lord performed. But Jesus Christ not only announced his miracle, he performed it as well. Because Jesus Christ is God's gracious Savior to which Elisha could only point. He is the Lord God himself who came into this world in the flesh in order to save us. He came for us. He intervened for us. And he provides for us all that we need, body and soul, now and forever. And He does so as the first fruits of all who belong to Him. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn, Christ the first fruits, then when He comes, those who belong to Him. And until He comes, until He comes, God gives Christ the firstfruits to us to feed on. We, as Peter says, are a holy priesthood. We have been found clean in Christ and therefore the firstfruits that belong to God, Jesus Christ, belongs to us. And He's given to us. And He's all that we need, body and soul, life and in death, forever and ever. Jesus Christ is the bread of life. We know this. We've heard Him say it Himself. And He sustains us on Himself until He returns. There's nothing that we need, people of God, for body or soul that is not provided for us in Christ. Nothing. By faith, we can believe it. And by faith, we can live according to it, even when we can't see it. And Christ continues to provide for us by His Holy Spirit through His Word and Sacrament, and He will continue to do so until this faith of ours, which the assurance of is weak at times, will be made sight. And then we'll know, without a doubt, that it's true. But in the meantime, from His Word this morning, people of God know that the Lord provides more than enough to His hungering people by His gracious Savior of his bread of life and rejoice in it. Rejoice in it. Let's pray. Almighty God and Heavenly Father, we are reminded from this story today of how great your provision is for your people. That from before the foundation of the world you have known who we would be and what we would need and you have provided it all. And you have provided it all in Christ Jesus our Lord. And Father, you know that we are but dust and you are mindful of our weakness and you know that even though this is true and even though it is eternally secured that as we live in this world under the effects of the curse, Father, we are frail. We are distracted and we are prone to discontent. We forget the truth and seek after substitutes. We chase those things which our hearts desire, those things that you have already granted if they're godly desires. Those things that you've told us to put away if they're not. And we get ourselves in trouble, Lord. We poison the pot. And we pray, Father, that when that happens to us, when we do sin, and if we tell ourselves that we don't sin, we deceive ourselves even more. That we will be quick to turn to Christ and cry out, O man of God, there's death in the pot. That we would look to Him for His salvation. We would look to Him for His provision. That we would look to Him to find the contentment that is ours in Him. That as we continue on in this life, waiting for Him to come so that we will hunger no more and thirst no more. That we would find our confidence, our assurance, our contentment in Him alone. To the glory of Your name and to our own well-being, we ask this in Christ's name. Amen.