Disclaimer:
Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording including sermon title, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these words. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copies and quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Pastor James May
FLOATING IRON
Tonight I want to relate to you one of the strangest, and in reality, one of the least mentioned miracles of the Old Testament. I have been in Pentecostal churches for over 50 years now but I cannot remember more than a very few times that this incident was referred to in a message behind the pulpit. Perhaps its because, on the surface, this miracle doesn’t seem to have much meaning for our modern society.
I must admit that I have read this story a number of times and I have never been led to minister on the subject until now. It seems that the Holy Ghost has opened my eyes to see just a little of what this story has to say to us right now. The Holy Bible is truly the living word of Almighty God and there are times when we are ready to receive what it has to say and other times when the meaning just simply evades us.
It’s not that God hides His word or makes it a secret in any fashion for it is His perfect will that we know and understand His Word. The problem is that we are not always spiritually awake and our heart and mind is not focused enough to grasp what is being taught to us. Even when we do grasp it, there is so much more that remains somewhat obscure and we can learn multiple lessons from every passage each time we read it.
So why do we read passages from the Old Testament anyway? What do things that happened with Israel and the Prophets from thousands of years ago have to do with us right here and right now?
1 Corinthians 10:6, "Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted."
1 Corinthians 10:11, "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."
So let us begin. Open your Bibles to the Book of II Kings chapter 6, verses 1 thru 7.
2 Kings 6:1-7, "And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha, Behold now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us. Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make us a place there, where we may dwell. And he answered, Go ye. And one said, Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go. So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood. But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed. And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he shewed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim. Therefore said he, Take it up to thee. And he put out his hand, and took it."
Isn’t this a strange story? It seems out of place but, of course, we know that God’s Word always has a design and He knows exactly what He wanted written and when He wanted it written.
Why does this seem out of place? After all, we have just finished reading the story of Naaman’s healing in the previous chapter. II Kings chapter 5 ends with the faithful servant of Elisha, named Gehazi, who has greatly sinned and accepted gifts from Namaan after Elisha had refused to be paid for the miracle of healing of leprosy.
Because of his sin, Gehazi was judged and the leprosy the Namaan had lost was then transmitted to him. He received the sentence of death from leprosy and went from the presence of Elisha to live out his remaining days in separation from the presence of the prophet and from the presence of the Lord.
Then, immediately after the miracle of the floating axe head, we see that Israel is attacked by the Syrian King and the battle for Israel’s survival as a nation is joined and the incident with the axe is left for us to read about.
So why did God perform such a miracle that seems so out of place?
Why did God choose to allow an iron axe head to float in a supernatural show of His power over something that seems to us as triviality in the loss of an axe head in the Jordan River?
If you are going to get the clear picture of what this miracle was all about we must start will Gehazi!
Gehazi represents the sin that is found in the heart of every man. There is not one of us here today who can say that we have not been guilty of the same sin that Gehazi committed. That sin was bound up in three things that Bible calls in 1 John 2:16, "...the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. "
It was the lust of the flesh that caused Gehazi to desire the comforts and recognition that he could have by accepting the talents of silver that Elisha refused. It was the lust of the eyes that caused Gehazi to covet after the wealth of Namaan. It was the pride of life that caused Gehazi to think that he could get away with it and no one would know the difference. He forgot that he was the servant of a prophet to whom God had revealed so many secret sins of other people.
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life will blind us to the fact that judgment lies at the door and that God’s grace can quickly turn to wrath if we willfully and knowingly disobey Him and try to usurp the glory that belongs to God.
In effect, by accepting the talents of silver from Namaan, Gehazi was taking part of the credit for the miracle of healing that God alone deserved and God will not share His glory with any man.
We have sinned and come short of the glory of God and we have become as Gehazi. The sin that we commit weighs us down and condemns us to die eternally separated from the presence of all that is holy and good.
Now comes the story of the iron axe head that fell off.
First, I want to remind you that the axe was borrowed. It did not belong to the prophets who were using it.
Your body, soul and spirit are not yours either. You have been bought with a price and you belong to God, all of you, not just the part you want to give, but even that part of your life and your heart that you try to keep back, holding back a part of the price like Ananias and Sapphira who died before the altar for lying to the Holy Ghost.
As the prophet was swinging the axe to perform the work of building a house for the prophets to dwell in, the iron head came loose, fell off of the wooden handle and plunged into the depths of the waters of the Jordan River.
The prophet was in a panic now. He could not rescue the iron axe head for the water was much too deep and it had probably sunk quite a way into the bottom of the silt at the bottom of the river. He could not pay for the axe because he had no money. If he could have paid for it he wouldn’t have had to borrow it in the first place! Now his reputation as an honest prophet, his ministry in the house of God and his financial future was at stake for he now owed a debt he could not repay.
Can you see the parallel being drawn here for you and I? We are using a borrowed body, soul and spirit. We have sinned and allowed our own head to slip from the hand of the Lord only to fall off into perdition. We have been given the sentence of eternal death represented by the water of the Jordan River. We cannot rescue ourselves. We cannot lift ourselves from the depths of sin and despair. We are hopelessly lost for we cannot repay the debt that we owe for losing our place in God.
There we sit, dead in sin, covered by despair, drowning in a sea of hopelessness, weighed down so that we can do nothing but sink deeper and deeper into the depths of sin. From the standpoint of human ability we are lost forever. But thank God, the miracle working power of God has already formulated a miracle of deliverance for each of us.
What caused the iron axe to float to the surface? There are three theories that are most prevalent in my reading. The first two are spurious to say the least. The only feasible explanation is that the power of God supernaturally gave that iron the ability to float. Whether God made it lighter than water by changing its molecular structure, or caused a powerful upward current to lift it, or whatever is immaterial. The fact is that we believe that God performed a miracle and allowed it to float to the top of the water.
In case you are interested here are the other two theories that I read about.
1) Elisha cast the “stick” or the handle of the axe into the water like a lance and it went down hard, stuck fast into the hole in the axe head, then floated the iron head to the top of the water.
How many believe that theory? If you do, I think that it had to be just as great a miracle that the handle was able to penetrate the current of the river water to the bottom of the river and hit the bottom with sufficient force to penetrate the silt at the bottom, find the invisible iron head and hit the opening in perfect alignment. Wow, what an aim and an arm Elisha must have had if that really happened.
Now only that but that handle must have been very large to give the axe and iron head enough buoyancy to float. I don’t know about you but I’ve never dropped any wooden handled tool in the water and watched it float because the metal head always drags the wooden handle to the bottom with it.
2) The second theory given is that the wooden handle went down with sufficient force and turbulence that it carried a tremendous amount of air bubbles that eventually followed the handle all the way to the bottom and somehow got under the iron axe head and floated it to the top as the air rose back to the surface.
Now there’s a theory we can live with, right? Well, it would take a lot more faith in wooden handles and air bubbles, plus the changing of a multitude of laws of nature for such a thing to happen considering the amount of air it would take to lift an iron object that displaced very little water to aid in the process. It certainly would not have been a hollow piece of iron or it would have done a poor job in cutting down the hardened wood of the trees.
Some people will try to explain everything God does with natural reasons. Man refuses to give God the glory for anything He does.
Iron should never float but it did because God is not only the creator of the laws of nature including gravity, physics and any other natural law that you can name, but He can reverse or change those laws any time He desires to in order to accomplish His will.
The iron axe head may seem so insignificant to us now but I want you to know that God cares for the insignificant things in your life too. If He cares enough to count the hair on your head I believe He cares about every aspect of your life!
So what is the message that God is trying to give to us through this miracle of the floating axe head? The stick cast into the water represents the wooden tree that was made into the Cross of Christ. The Cross of Christ that is cast into the waters, or given into the seas of lost humanity. Then the power of the Cross will lift the lost, heavy iron of our sin-sick soul from the depths of the sea!
The Cross of Christ and the shed blood of the Lamb will lift us out of the miry clay and brings new hope and a new life to all who will hear. We are raised from the depths of sin into a new light, a new day and given eternal life. Then we are put back onto the handle by allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us into working in the Kingdom of God once again.
Like the prophet who lost the axe head, we are unable to pay the price to buy back our salvation. There is no man who has the ability to reach down and lift us. It has to be done by the power of God through faith in Jesus’ shed blood.
Elijah commanded the servant to pick the axe and continue doing his work in building the house of the prophets.
Jesus said in Luke 9:23, "...If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. " The way may seem heavy but Jesus can float the weight and carry your load. Cast your burdens on Him because He really cares and He is able to see you through. Jesus said that His yoke is easy and the burden for working in His Kingdom is light. He can lift you up above the shadows and plant your feet on the Solid Rock.
What about you my brother and sister? Have you found yourself slipping from the handle and beginning to fall into the depths of sin once again? It’s easy to begin to slip off but the Holy Spirit will continually try to keep you connected with God.
Only if we continue to allow ourselves to slip will we fall off. One day we will wake up and realize that we are now back into the depths of despair.
Call out to God right now. Ask Him to wash your heart in His blood. Allow Him to cast the Cross of Calvary into the waters of your life and your hard, iron heart will float once again.
If God can bring an iron axe head to the top of the river, He can surely lift you out of the miry clay of sin once again.
