The Deadly Potage, The Iron That Swam, And the Syrians Struck Blind

2 Kings 4:38


The Deadly Pottage

In this story we are going to learn just how mighty, how caring, and also how powerful our God really is. A lot of times we go through life, and we forget just who were hooked up with. We need to stop and consider what kind of heavenly Father we have. The Bible says to just be still for a while and know that he is God. Do you even know what your Father is like? Do you know what he loves? Do you know what he expects from you? Do you know anything about him at all?
That’s why he says “Stop! Be still, and get to know me.” He says, “Take my yoke upon you , and learn of me.” He says, “consider, what great things I have done for you.” And “Study, to show yourself approved unto me.”

One of my favorite verses that tells me what kind of father I’ve got is Luke 11:13. It says, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy spirit to them that ask him.”

Wow! If we would just stop and consider what that verse says. I love my children very much, but even all the love that I could muster up, couldn’t be compared to God’s love for his children. What a Father! To God, I’m considered evil, and rightfully so. But even being the wicked sinner that I am, I sure do love to give good gifts to my children.

Here’s the catch though. Let’s say, for instance, your mom and dad put a lot of work into raising you. Right? They fed you, clothed you, spent time with you, took you to church, prayed for you, and much more. They love you because you are their own. But your interest at heart were not their interest. You wanted to do things your own way, and you were more interested in the things of the world and the ways of the world. Perhaps you wanted the same clothes or toys that other kids had. Maybe you were more interested in the shoes that were in style and you got mad cause dad wouldn’t buy them for you. I’m sure there have been times you didn’t care what interested dad or mom. You didn’t care about pleasing them at all. You wanted to please yourself.

Well, let’s take a closer look at the rest of that verse. It says, “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.”

You see, our Heavenly Father is interested in spiritual things. It breaks his heart when we are more concerned with worldly, carnal things. Our heavenly Father is just waiting for us to ask for spiritual things, he’s ready to just dump it on us. Not to even mention the silver, gold, and precious stones he’s piling up for us in glory. That’s what God is interested in. He compared the Holy Spirit to a good gift. We have a perfect Father. He’s promised to supply our needs. If we “have not”, maybe it’s because we “asked not”. Or maybe we don’t really need it. We just think we do. If I gave my children everything they asked for, they would be fat, lazy, ungrateful little pigs.

God is such a good Father, he knows exactly what we need. If God knows how many hairs are on your head, don’t you think he has your best interest at heart? God knows what will carry you through the storms of life, and it isn’t fleshy, carnal things. I found out at the hardest times in my life, that it was the spiritual things which brought me through. You see, God knows what we need. He’s the greatest Father anyone could ever have. So Let’s work on finding out what he’s interested in. O.K.?

Back to our story. We will start in 2 Kings 4:38. Elisha had just healed the Shunamite woman’s son, and the Bible says, he traveled again to Gilgal. At that time, there was a dearth in the land . A dearth is the same thing as a famine.

Well, the son’s of the prophets were sitting before Elisha, and their stomachs began to growl. When Elisha heard this, he told his servant to get a fire started, and set on a great big pot of pottage for the son’s of the prophets. As the servant was doing so, one of the men went out into the field to gather herbs. The man found a wild vine, (meaning a poisonous vine) and he filled his lap up with the wild gourds from off the vine. He couldn’t tell which one was which. All the herbs and the vines looked alike to him.

Well, the Bible says that he came and shredded those wild gourds into the pot. The other men didn’t even know that they were poisonous. It looked alright to them, and besides they were all hungry and ready to eat. So they poured out the pottage into bowls, and began to eat it. Then they realized just by the taste of it, that it was poisonous. They stopped eating it and cried out to Elisha, “O thou man of God, there is death in this pot!”

Elisha said, “Don’t fret, and go get me some meal.”

Minutes later, one of the men came running back with some meal, and gave it to Elisha. Elisha threw the meal into the pot, and then said, “O.K now, pour it out for the people so they can eat.”
The men didn’t question him at all. They just did exactly what Elisha told them to do, and they ate up all that pottage. They didn’t even get a tummy ache. Now if there would have been any Americans in that crowd, they would have wrinkled up their noses, and said, “Eeeewww, yuk! I’m not eating any of that pottage.”

But you know what? I bet as Elisha threw that meal into the pot, he prayed, “Lord bless this pottage, and please take out all the poison, in your Name.”

I can’t close this story without applying it to our lives spiritually. You know boys and girls, in the Bible, we as Christians are likened to a vessel. We need to be fit for the master’s use. We can’t be used for God if we’ve got poison inside us can we? We might make someone sick spiritually. I’ll tell you how to keep from getting poisoned. Watch how you pick your friends. You’ve heard the saying, “One bad apple, spoils the bunch.” What a true saying.

Let me give you a personal experience I had with a friend. She grew up with me. We went to the same church, she had Christian parents. We had a lot of fun together, but my mom didn’t feel good about her. She tried to warn me, but hey, my friend looked like a Christian to me. She talked like one, walked like one, she wasn’t even allowed to wear pants, only dresses. She looked like a Christian if ever anybody saw one. You couldn’t tell the difference between her and any other Christian girl. But my mom saw a wild streak. We hung around at age 8, 9, 10, 11. Then I went to Haiti for six years with my parents. When I came back, I got hooked up with her again, but it didn’t take me long to see that she was a wild gourd. She tried to grab me by the hand and take me along with her down a dark, and wild road. If I’d have hung around her another week, I probably would have reached the point of no return. My pot would have been poisoned.

Do you know what that pot in 2 Kings, chapter 4 was used for? It was used to feed the sons of the prophets. The Lord wants to use us to feed others spiritually. Do you kids know that you can be ministers? The dictionary word for minister means, to attend to, or to serve. It also means to give things needful, or to supply the means of relief. And I like this one, it can mean, a chief servant.

That pot of pottage was used to minister unto the sons of the prophets. The Lord can use you to minister to the saved as well as the lost. So keep that pot nice and healthy, cause God wants to use you to nourish others. Watch out for the wild gourds.


The Iron That Swam

So now that we’ve seen how mighty God is, let’s go on to how caring he is. Our next little story opens in 2 Kings chapter 6. The sons of the prophets were in Jordan, and they were trying to build a dwelling place. As one of the men were cutting down a big beam, the ax head flew off of the handle and landed in the river. The man yelled for Elisha, and said, “Master, the ax that I was using was not mine, it was borrowed.”

Elisha asked the man where it fell. The man pointed toward the place where he saw it plunge into the water. Now I’m sure that water was muddy, which meant you definitely couldn’t see the bottom.

Then you know what? Elisha did a strange thing. He cut down a stick and cast it onto the water right where the man pointed. You won’t believe this unless you are spiritually minded, but guess what happened after that. The ax head began to float on top of the water! Can you just imagine that? A big hunk of iron floating on top of the water! Not only that, the Bible says, “The iron did swim.”

When that hunk of iron swam over toward the man, Elisha said, “Now, take it up to thee.”
The Bible says, the man just put out his hand, and took it up. He didn’t have to swim out to it, it swam to him. What a caring God. He cared about something small, something that was borrowed. You know what God says about small things? He said, despise them not. He cares just as much about small things as he does mighty things. I’m so glad he takes the time to care about simple small things, as well as huge and mighty things. God is so good.


The Syrians Struck Blind

Now we will go on and see how powerful our God can be. The Bible says in 2 Kings 6:8 that the king of Syria warred against Israel and took counsel with his servants saying, “In such and such a place, shall be my camp.”

Well, Elisha sent a message to the king of Israel. He told the King where the Syrians had set up camp, and told him not to pass by that way. The king of Israel sent a servant to spy out the place where the man of God had warned him about. Sure enough, the Syrians were waiting for them. But they waited in vain because the King did not pass that way.
This happened again and again. Finally, the king of Syria began to worry a little bit about this situation. He thought that maybe one of his own men was telling the King of Israel where their hiding place was. He called his servants together and said in verse 11, “Will ye not show me which of us is for the King of Israel?”

Then one of his servants said, “None of us, my lord, oh King. But Elisha the prophet that is in Israel, he can tell the King of Israel the words you speak in your bedchamber.”
Then the king of Syria sent a spy to find out where Elisha was. The spy came back and told the king that Elisha was in Dothan. So the King sent out horses, and chariots, and a great host by night to surround the city.

When Elisha’s servant woke up the next morning and went outside, he noticed all the horses, and chariots surrounding the city. He ran back into the house, and slammed the door behind him. He was nervous, and scared. “Elisha, what are we going to do?” he asked.

Elisha answered, “Fear not, for they that be with us, are more than they that be with them.”
At that point, the servant probably thought Elisha was loosing it. I’m sure the servant must have thought something like this, “ Elisha, look around us, your eye sight must be getting bad, cause there’s no way there could be more of us than there are of them.”

Elisha must have known what the servant was thinking, because he prayed, “Lord open his eyes that he may see.”

Just then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he saw a mountain full of horses, and chariots of fire. Can you even imagine what a horse and chariot of fire looks like? Not to mention a whole mountain full of them. That was probably a pretty wild sight if you ask me. Our God is so powerful, isn’t he?

Well, all that host of the King of Syria, started coming toward Elisha. Elisha, prayed, “Lord, smite these people with blindness.”

Here’s the good part. The Bible says in verse 18, that the Lord smote those people with blindness, according to the word of Elisha. The last part of that verse sticks out to me. “According to the word of Elisha.” That right there is proof that we can move God. Praise God that he is compassionate enough to be moved by man. He did what Elisha asked him to do. That is really something to me. What a God! He’s no tyrant. He’s not some “old man upstairs” doesn’t care about what goes on down here. He’s a loving, caring, powerful, almighty, God.
You see, God did smite them with blindness, but not the kind of blindness you might think. Take for instance the song that says, “Was blind, but now I see.”

That doesn’t mean total darkness physically, but spiritually. God smote those men with a weird kind of blindness. They could actually see Elisha, but they didn’t know who he was.
Elisha walked over to them and said, “Hey, your headed in the wrong direction. This is not the way, nor is this the city that you look for. Follow me, and I’ll take you to the man who you are looking for.”

But he led them to Samaria instead. Now here’s something else about our God, he’s got a good since of humor, doesn’t he?

When they got into Samaria, Elisha asked God to open their eyes. They then realized they were smack dab in the middle of Samaria. When the King of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “Shall I smite them, shall I smite them? Boy, he was chomping at the bits.
But Elisha said, “No, don’t smite them. Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink. Then send them back to their master.”

After they ate and drank, they were sent back to Syria. And the Bible says in verse 23, “So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel.”

It’s so wonderful to learn more and more about our God, isn’t it? But guess what? We haven’t even scratched the surface yet.