A Dead Promise And A Living Anointing

-The Bible tells us that her only child died. 2 Kings 4:21 states that even after the child died that her response was almost unfathomable in the moment of grief. But even in the midst of her trouble this woman was a great woman. This woman, great in her lot in life and also great in her ability to handle trouble.

-I ask you:

• Find the man who has walked across the hot Sahara desert, when you find him, you will find blisters on his feet.

• Find the man who has carried a burden of grief, when you find him, you will find his shoulders bent from his burden.

• Find the man who has sailed the seas in the great ships, when you find him, he will tell of the storms that he has weathered in life.

-There is no garden of comfort here in this world. Every garden of comfort soon finds that trouble will hitch up a muscular team of oxen and tear up and turn over the land with a burning plow of disaster.

-If we think that we can hoard our lives away from hurt and difficulty, we are only living in a pipe dream. Trouble forces it’s way into every man’s life regardless of where he sits.

-Suddenly the promise was dead.

• The promise had been alive last week.

• The promise had been well yesterday.

• The promise had appeared healthy at breakfast.

• The promise had walked into the fields.

-But now the promise was dead. The very light of this woman’s life was now dead. Now what she had gained from the Lord was gone. In the very budding of this young man’s life, all was suddenly lost.

-The severest problems may come. With their entry into our lives, the sudden visitation of a trial can change every plan and course of action that we may have. The place where reason and logic are completely destroyed.

-Now what had been prophetically promised was dead. What do you do when your promise is dead?

B. The Call For the Prophet

-This great woman in her distress knew of only one thing to do: pray and send for the prophet. Nothing is too hard for the Lord.

-So for the first time the room of the prophet becomes the chamber of death. Her sorrow was great and her grief palpable.

In the old days, an artist invited a close friend to come to his studio to see a painting just completed. He came at the time appointed but instead of being ushered into the studio, he was placed in a very dark room. He waited for fifteen minutes and when his friend returned, he greeted him cordially and then took him to his art gallery. Before the man left, the artist spoke to him and said, “I suppose you think it very strange that I took you to the dark room and left you for so long. But I knew that with the glare of the street in your eyes you could not appreciate the fine colors within the picture. So I left you in the dark room until your eyes could adjust and the glare had been worn out of your eyes.”

-So it is that God sometimes puts His children in the dark rooms of life so that we may be able to see the beauty of heavenly things that are otherwise often hidden from our lives.

-This lady rode a donkey to mount Carmel to find the prophet. Now her dead promise becomes the prophet’s dead promise.