2King 2:21 The Waters
of Jericho 6/25/2017 ßà
#1. Jericho, the
Cursed City (Deut 34:3, Josh 6:17,24-26, 1King 16:34)
#2. Bring Me a
New Cruse (2King 2:20, Gen 19:26, Deut 29:23, Jer 17:6, Col 4:6,
Mat 5:13, Mark 9:49, 2Chron 13:5)
#3. The Lord Has
Healed These Waters (2King 2:21, Gal 3:17, Rom 8:1, Gal 3:13-14)
Please
open your
Bibles to the Prophecy of the Kings, 2King 2:15 (2X). Today I would like
us to take a breather from our studies in Revelation, and I want to take a
closer look at the second miracle of the prophet Elisha. The first miracle was
that God parted the waters of the Jordan River. The second miracle was that God
healed the waters of the city of Jericho. And thus the title of this sermon is,
“The
Waters of Jericho” (2X). At about this time the prophet Elisha had
succeeded the prophet Elijah.
Elisha
was a disciple of Elijah. Just before the prophet Elijah was to be raptured up
into heaven Elisha asked “I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be
upon me”. Shortly thereafter Elijah was taken up into heaven, body and
soul, and Elisha inherited the mantle of Elijah. Then we read in 2King 2
2Ki
2:15-16 And when the sons of the
prophets which were to view at
Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they
came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him. And
they said unto him, Behold now, there be with thy servants fifty strong men;
let them go, we pray thee, and seek thy master: lest peradventure the Spirit of
the LORD hath taken him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some
valley. And he said, Ye shall not send.
2Ki 2:17-18 And
when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, Send. They sent therefore
fifty men; and they sought three days, but found him not. And when they came again to him,
(for he tarried at Jericho,) he said unto them, Did I not say unto you, Go not?
2Ki 2:19 ¶ And
the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of
this city is pleasant, as my lord
seeth: but the water is naught, and
the ground barren.
2Ki 2:20 And he
said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him.
2Ki
2:21-22 And he went forth unto the
spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the
LORD, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death
or barren (land). So the waters were
healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake.
“The
sons of the prophets” are members of a school at Jericho for those who have
received the prophetic gift from God. In addition there were schools for
prophets at Bethel and at Gilgal. These sons of the prophets have seen how God
parted the waters of Jordan before Elisha, and they have seen the hairy mantle
of Elijah now on the shoulders of Elisha, and they recognized that the spirit
of Elijah now rested on Elisha. Then Elisha stayed for a few days at Jericho,
until the young men were convinced that Elijah could no longer be found on
earth. So he stayed at Jericho. Please turn in your Bibles to the
prophecy of Joshua, Josh 6:17 (2X). There we read about:
#1. Jericho, the
Cursed City (Deut 34:3, Josh 6:17,24-26, 1King 16:34)
When
the children of Israel came up out of Egypt they wandered in the wilderness for
40 years and then, under the leadership of Joshua, they crossed the Jordan
River, and God miraculously parted the waters of the Jordan River so that they
crossed over on dry ground. The first city in the land of Canaan that they had
to conquer was Jericho, which God identified in Deut 34:3 as the “City
of Palms”. We rd.
Jos
6:17 And the city shall be
accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the
harlot shall live, she and all that are
with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.
God
wrote this story of the destruction of Jericho as a picture of the end of
the world. Everything living, including the animals, was destroyed, and the
city was burned with fire. But before this burning of the city occurred, Rahab
the harlot and all those that were in her house were rescued, a picture of the
rapture of the saints before God destroys this world. Please drop down to verse
24,
Jos 6:24-25 And
they burnt the city with fire, and all that was
therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron,
they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD. And Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive,
and her father’s household, and all that she had; and she dwelleth in Israel even unto this day; because she hid the
messengers, which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.
Jos 6:26 And
Joshua adjured them at that time,
saying, Cursed be the man before the
LORD, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the
foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it.
Here
we read that this city was accursed not only before the city was
destroyed, but also there would rest a curse on anyone who would attempt to
rebuild this city of Jericho. But about 550 years later, during the reign of
wicked king Ahab, this command from God was forgotten, for we read in:
1Ki 16:34 In
his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof
in Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the
LORD, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun.
Why would anyone build a city on
this place? Apparently it was a desirable location, for Jericho was
described as the city of palm trees. There was water there. The Canaanites
already concluded that this was a desirable location for a city, and they
fortified that city greatly. Please turn again to 2King 2:19 (2X). At
the time Elisha tarried in that city it was still a young city. It was built in
the days of Ahab, and the son of Ahab named Ahaziah had just begun his reign.
But now they discovered a problem:
2Ki 2:19 ¶ And
the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of
this city is pleasant, as my lord
seeth: but the water is naught,
and the ground barren (lit: causes barrenness)
“The
water is naught”. Do you recognize the root word for the word “naughty”?
This does not adequately reflect the strength of the Hebrew word that has been
translated “naught”. This Hebrew word <07451> has been
translated “naught” 3X in the Bible, but the same word has been translated “evil”
or “wickedness” or “wicked” 526 times in the Bible. For example,
in the Garden of Eden was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the
word “evil” is that same Hebrew word. Another example is given in Gen 6:5,
where God says, “And GOD saw that the wickedness <07451> of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil
<07451> continually”. Now we see that this Hebrew word reflects a
very great evil. Therefore, when we read 2King 2:19 we should understand it to
mean, “the water is evil”. How can an inanimate object, such as water,
have the property of being evil, such as human beings are? The key to the problem here must
be sought in the spiritual meaning of this historical event that God used as a
metaphor for salvation. Yes, the whole Bible was written for the salvation of
those whom God intended to save from their slippery slide into Hell. For
example, God says in 2Tim 3:16,
2Ti 3:16 All
scripture is given by inspiration of
God, and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
All
Scripture is profitable for instruction in righteousness. It means that
we must acknowledge God’s handiwork unto salvation of man on almost every page
of the Bible. This was the purpose of God in giving the Bible to all mankind.
We may not see God’s salvation plan on every page of the Bible, but that is our
problem, that is not God’s problem. What elements of salvation then can we find
in this historical event that is described here in just 4 verses in this
chapter? #1
We can understand that Jericho might be a picture of this world, and this world
is certainly under the curse of sin, and on the way to Hell. #2
The people of this world consider this world a desirable location, and they see
great beauty in all that God has placed in this world. #3 When the people dig a little
deeper into the ground out of which they were taken, they find there is a
problem with the water that is in this ground. The water is evil. And what does
this water refer to? #4 This water that is in them is a metaphor for the Gospel
unto salvation. Please turn in your Bibles to the Gospel according to John,
John 4:10 (2X). The Gospel is like a stream of words flowing out of the mouths
of those who claim to be prophets of God. But their gospels are evil. Before
Christ came almost the entire world was enveloped by worship of idols that
cannot save. These were gospels, or plans of salvation, that were dragging
people even deeper into Hell than without this false worship. The Lord Jesus
said to the Samaritan woman in John
Joh 4:10-12
Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and
who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of
him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman
saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from
whence then hast thou that living water? Art
thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof
himself, and his children, and his cattle?
Joh 4:13 Jesus
answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst
again:
Joh 4:14 But
whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but
the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up
into everlasting life.
Paraphrased, the living water represents
the words of the Gospel that the Lord Jesus gives to those whom He intends to
save, and it shall bring salvation to the soul of the one receiving this living
water. And then he himself shall be a source of living water bringing the
Gospel of salvation unto eternal life to many others whom God planned to save.
But before Christ came the world was full of gospels that were evil. The
waters of Jericho were evil. What was Elisha’s response to that? He said:
#2. Bring Me a
New Cruse (2King 2:20, Gen 19:26, Deut 29:23, Jer 17:6, Col 4:6,
Mat 5:13, Mark 9:49, 2Chron 13:5)
Please
turn again to 2King 2:20
(2X). Historically the men of Jericho asked from Elisha if he could do anything
to raise their level of prosperity. Since the waters were evil the ground
causes barrenness, or it causes to miscarry, which means that women aborted
their children before they were 9 months in the womb, and cattle were casting
off their young before they were ready for birth. Jericho in spite of all its
ideal qualities then lacked the one thing essential. And how did Elisha respond
to that? We read in:
2Ki 2:20 And he
said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him.
Why
salt? You
recognize that God intended this to be used as a metaphor, and not as a means
of curing poisoned waters. Some people start imagining that salt is used as a
preservative, and salt adds such a good taste to food, and salt is the emblem
of divine holiness and grace. Nonsense! This comes out of their own
imagination. They have not consulted the Bible, for the Bible says totally the
opposite. For example, when Lot and his family fled from Sodom, after they
arrived in Zoar, we read in Gen 19:26, “But his wife looked back from
behind him, and she became a pillar of salt”. Certainly she did not become
the emblem of sweetness and preservation, but she came under the judgment of
God. Salt is here a symbol of the judgment of God. And on the Last Day she will
stand before the Judgment throne of Christ and be cast into Hell. Moreover, God
speaks in Deut 29:23 about the land of those who commit the abominations
of worshipping idols, and God says there, “And
that the whole land thereof is
brimstone, and salt, and burning”.
Again, salt is here associated with brimstone and burning. Moreover, in Jer
17:5 God speaks about the man that trusteth in man, and whose heart departeth
from the Lord. And then God says in Jer 17:6, “For he shall be like
the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit
the parched places in the wilderness, in
a salt land and not inhabited”. I could go on and on about the many places
where God indicates that He uses salt as a symbol of Judgment. But how then
should we interpret Col 4:6, where God says, “Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt,
that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man”. It means that we must
never leave the judgment of God out of our vocabulary when we present the
Gospel. All mankind comes into the world as rebels against God, and if God does
not interfere, they all are on the way to Hell, which is their just reward. And
when we present the Gospel to anyone we may never leave out the first principle
of the Gospel presentation: “We are under the Judgment of God”. Please
turn in your Bibles to the Gospel according to Mark, Mark 9:49 (2X).
While you look that up let me read to you
Mt 5:13 ¶ Ye
are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith
shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and
to be trodden under foot of men.
If
we leave Judgment out of our Gospel presentation, it has become good for
nothing. If a sermon is preached without mentioning Hell and damnation, it
is a sermon that is good for nothing. A sermon about John 3:16 that speaks only
about the love of God has become good for nothing, and should be trodden under
foot by men. The Lord Jesus states it even stronger in the Gospel according to
Mark, where He says in Mark 9:49, “For every one shall be salted with
fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt”. Everyone shall be
judged with fire. Either we are judged with Christ and in Christ when He
endured the equivalent of an eternity in Hell while He was hanging on the
cross, or we must endure an eternity in Hell ourselves on behalf of our own
sins. And every OT animal sacrifice was salted with salt, because all those
animal sacrifices were pictures of Christ on the cross, as He endured the
Judgment of God on behalf of our sins. Therefore when God speaks about a “Covenant
of Salt” we know that it is the Covenant of Grace whereby Christ has
endured the Judgment of God in our place and for our sins. God says in 2Chron
13:5, “Ought ye not to know that the LORD God of Israel gave the kingdom
over Israel to David for ever, even
to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt?” Paraphrased, this says that
the Lord God of the Israel of God gave the eternal Kingdom to Christ and to His
elect, chosen out of all nations and tribes of the earth by the Covenant of Grace,
whereby Christ suffered the Judgment in our place and for our sins. Please
turn again to 2King 2:20 (2X). Elisha said to the men at Jericho:
You
put salt therein. You must inflict the Judgment of God. Do we still interpret
this correctly?
2Ki 2:20 And he
said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him.
What
is this new cruse?
It means a brand new bowl, straight from the Potter, a bowl that has never
contained any salt; a vessel that has never contained any sin, for judgment is
the result of sin. This word for “cruse” or “bowl” is a Hebrew word that is
different from the Hebrew word for “vessel”, which occurs many times in the
Bible. But this word for “cruse” or “bowl” appears only one time, and it is
derived from a Hebrew word that means “to prosper”, and “to be
successful in all that He does”. Please turn in your Bibles to the
Acts of the Apostles, Acts 4:25 (2X). This “cruse” or “bowl” straight
from the Potter is very special. And so I am led to the conclusion that this
cruse, or this bowl, represents the Lord Jesus Christ who was made like unto
His brethren, except for sin. He was born in the likeness of human flesh, yet
without original sin, and He never sinned in His entire life, for He must be
our Lamb of God without blemish. And He was the cruse that had to be filled
with salt, for He had to endure the Judgment that should have come to us. “But
he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our
iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was
upon him; and with his stripes we are healed”, according to Isa 53:5.
His atonement was a substitutionary atonement, for God says in 2Cor 5:21,
“For he hath made him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him”.
But who would afflict the Lord Jesus Christ with the sufferings of the cross?
The men of Jericho, the men of this world, and all the representatives of
mankind, including the representatives of you and me, were gathered together to
afflict the Lord Jesus Christ. We all were guilty of crucifying Him, and
for putting the salt on Him and in Him, for God says in Acts 4:25-28,
Ac 4:25-28 Who by the mouth of thy servant
David hast said, Why
did the heathen rage, and the
people
imagine vain things? The kings of the earth
stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against
his Christ. For
of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod,
and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered
together,
For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be
done.
God,
in His counsel,
determined before the foundation of the world what needed to be done. And God
used the people of the world to afflict Christ, and put Him on the cross. But
the power of the people is limited. Therefore in addition, the Father must
afflict Him most, for the Father desired His Son to be 100% complete in all
that He does, and the Father demanded that the payment which Christ had to make
was equivalent to the payment that we would have to make, and that His payment
was also sufficient to satisfy the righteousness of God, the Judge. Please
turn again to 2King 2:21 (2X). Now that His payment was complete, now the
cruse was emptied into the waters of Jericho, and the Gospel that poured forth
into the world was now the Gospel of the NT, where it is stated clearly that
Christ made the payment for all the sins of all those whom He came to save. And then we read:
#3. The Lord Has
Healed These Waters (2King 2:21, Gal 3:17, Rom 8:1, Gal 3:13-14)
2K 2:21 And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and
cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the LORD, I have healed these
waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land.
What
exactly did God
promise here? According to Gal 3:17 at the cross Christ signed the
Covenant of Grace with His own blood. The Covenant was now confirmed by the
death of Christ, and the Law cannot disannul the promise of the Covenant of
Grace. The demands of the Law, eternal damnation, cannot make of none effect
the promise to the heirs of salvation. And thus there is no condemnation to those
who are in God’s Covenant of Grace. Thus we believe what God said in Rom
8:1, and Gal 3:13
Rom 8:1 ¶ There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit.
Gal 3:13-14
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse
for us: for it is written, Cursed is
every one that hangeth on a tree: That
the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that
we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Paraphrased God says in 2King 2:21,
I have cleaned up this water of the Gospel. There will be no more confusion in
the ordinances of the Ceremonial Law, for the Ceremonial Law has been done away
And the promise of salvation by faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ is given
to all the souls whom God the Holy Spirit makes to be born from above. For them
the curse of the Law is removed from this water. But for all those who prefer
to continue to drink from the waters of the false gospels, they remain under
the curse that was there before I have cleared the water of the true Gospel.
Then we find in V.22
2Ki 2:22 So the
waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he
spake.
When you see these words “unto
this day” you must remember that God did not use these words
just to
explain some historical details. This expression “unto this day” is
found at least 88 times in the Bible. What does it mean? Well, the Bible
was written to mankind in all their generations. It means that when I read
these words in this 21st century, “unto this day”, I should believe
that it applies unto this day. And if I would be around next year I would still
read this as “unto this day”. It means that these words “unto this day” apply
unto the last day of this earth’s existence. Moreover, the purpose for
the Bible to be written is to proclaim to all mankind that there is the Good
News that there is salvation for all who will believe in the sovereign saving
act of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Therefore, these words “unto this
day” have something to do with salvation. God says in Rom 15:4,
Ro 15:4 For
whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we
through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
Armed
with this information we must go back into the OT Scriptures and apply
this. Thus when we see,
1Ki 12:19 So
Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day.
We
must ask, what does it mean? It means that “Israel”, whoever God has in
view with “Israel” is in rebellion against the house of David, the house of
Christ, until the Last Day. We know that the heathen are in rebellion against
Christ until the Last Day; that is no surprise. But now God says that even the
most religious people on earth, “Israel”, are also in rebellion against Christ.
Today this “Israel” may refer to the physical descendants of Jacob, the thirteen
tribes, or it may just as well refer to the Israel of God, which is the
remnant chosen by grace out of all nations of the earth, the elect of God.
This means that God is underscoring the fact that all mankind is inherently
corrupt, and by nature in rebellion against Christ. To us this should not come
as a surprise anymore, since you have heard me quote from Jer 17:9 often
enough that “the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked”.
For
example, out of the heart of man came a desperately wicked gospel, which may be
called “the prosperity gospel”. Basically, they say that if you truly
believe that you are now a child of God, He will bless you with material
wealth, lots of it, like He blessed Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David and
Solomon and many others with great material wealth. And if you do not get
wealthy and healthy, there must be sin in your life, like Job’s friends were
accusing Job of. But this “prosperity gospel” is a false gospel, and is
one of the abominations that God hates. When we pray to God, we should not pray
for more money or for physical prosperity. All money and material wealth shall
be burned up when Christ returns. We must pray for those things that are of
lasting value. We must pray for those things that are pleasing to God, such
as an open door for witnessing, or an open door to minister to those who
are needy or sick, or to give us a greater love for our church family, or an
increased wisdom in interpreting the Bible, or better relationships within our
personal family, and so on. In a prosperity gospel the preachers claim that we
should give the pastor more money, because if we sow bountifully, then we shall
also reap bountifully, from Mal 3:10, and 2Cor 9:6, and they mean
that your reward will be that you will get healthy and wealthy. But it is all a
hoax, for those passages do not promise any physical prosperity, but they refer
to “all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ”, Eph 1:3.
And so, when we pray we must not ask God for physical blessings, like the men
of Jericho did, but we ask God for spiritual blessings, like Elisha’s response
was to the pleading from the men of Jericho. That is what is pleasing to God,
and that is what we must do unto this day, which means until the Last
Day has arrived
AMEN. Let
us turn to the Lord in prayer.