ELISHA’S MINISTRY: “CHRISTIAN – HOW IS YOUR LITTLE UPPER CHAMBER FURNISHED?” Part 2 of 2
SERIES – MESSAGES ON ELISHA – HIS LIFE AND MINISTRY Number 9
This next message which is Part 2 continues the account of Elisha in his circuit and focuses on Shunem. There he used to stay with a childless couple and they were led by God to make a small room for Elisha each time he passed by there. Last time we looked at the background to all this, and now in Part 2 we will look closely at the furniture that was placed there for Elisha. Firstly we will repeat the relevant passage from 2Kings.
2Kings 4:8 Now there came a day when Elisha passed over to Shunem where there was a prominent woman, and she persuaded him to eat food, and so it was, as often as he passed by, he turned in there to eat food. 2Kings 4:9 She said to her husband, “Behold now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God passing by us continually. 2Kings 4:10 Please, let us make a little walled upper chamber and let us set a bed for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand, and it shall be, when he comes to us, that he can turn in there.”
2Kings 4:11 One day he came there and turned in to the upper chamber and rested. 2Kings 4:12 Then he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite,” and when he had called her, she stood before him. 2Kings 4:13 He said to him, “Say now to her, Behold, you have been careful for us with all this care. What can I do for you? Would you be spoken for to the king or to the captain of the army?” and she answered, “I live among my own people,”
2Kings 4:14 so he said, “What then is to be done for her?” and Gehazi answered, “Truly she has no son and her husband is old.” 2Kings 4:15 He said, “Call her.” When he had called her, she stood in the doorway. 2Kings 4:16 Then he said, “At this season next year you shall embrace a son,” and she said, “No, my lord, O man of God, do not lie to your maidservant.” 2Kings 4:17 The woman conceived and bore a son at that season the next year, as Elisha had said to her
I want to share what I find most constructive in this story, and that is the furnishings – a BED for rest; a TABLE and CHAIR for work, preparation, and contemplation; and a LAMPSTAND for light. This was simple furnishing, but is all a worker of God needs. Let us see if we can gain the instruction.
THE BED: The first mention of a bed in scripture is in Genesis 47 when Jacob was resting his last on a bed in Egypt. The bed is the place of rest, a refuge for Elisha from the draining aspects of daily spiritual welfare and from the tiresome journey through the heat of the day. We all need that bed in times when the journey is hard. To repose in the Lord is so sweet and necessary. Too many Christian workers have been burnt out through the neglect of the bed of God’s provision. We can’t serve everyone and the Lord teaches that – look at this verse - Mark 6 v 31 He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest a while.” (For there were many people coming and going and they did not even have time to eat.). When we consider our blessed Lord, He drew apart at times and separated Himself from the ministry to spend time with the Father in a closeness. In fact, for Jesus, he did not have a place to call His own - Luke 9:58 and Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Foxes had their beds, birds had their beds; Jesus had none. Elsisha had his simple room, a place of provision from Jehovah.
A bed is a place for rest, withdrawal and refreshment, and without doubt, the prophet needed all that. The Shumanite’s provision was the provision of the Lord. In Psalm 4, David says to meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still. He means it to be a place of quiet retreat in the Lord’s presence. A bed is not always the place of delights. In Psalm 6 David says he is weary with his sighing, and every night his bed swims with tears, even to the extent of melting his couch. Just in that quiet time by oneself, the sadness of life can overtake the person. Also in the Psalms, in 36 actually, David describes a wicked man this way – “He plans wickedness upon his bed. He sets himself on a path that is not good. He does not despise evil.”. That applies to the wicked, but David also sets out the position of the righteous in these two verses - Psa. 63 v 6 When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches. Psa. 149 v 5 Let the godly ones exult in glory. Let them sing for joy on their beds. I wonder what the bed meant for Elisha. There was much on his mind, and he possibly knew both joy and sorrow, and inspiration and contemplation, as he went to sleep in that small chamber. Now we can’t leave the matter without looking at one other aspect, a position that would have been foreign to Elisha, but not to a number of us. What could that possibly be? These verses from Proverbs will explain - Prov. 26 v 14 As the door turns on its hinges so does the sluggard on his bed. Prov. 26:15 The sluggard buries his hand in the dish. He is weary of bringing it to his mouth again. May we not be numbered among the sluggards.
THE TABLE AND CHAIR: What would the table and chair have signified? One of the best known table verses is this one - Psalm 23 v 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You have anointed my head with oil. My cup overflows. From that we see that the table is the Lord’s prepared provision, and that was true for Elisha as well. The prophet had his table and chair. In his little “mansion” Elisha could sit and meditate on how the Lord provided for him, simple provisions, but it is in simplicity that some of the most profound results emerge. When the Lord cuts away all the luxury and encumbrances we carry around, it is then He can best speak to us. Also, Elisha could sit there and enjoy the great fellowship he had with God, for the table speaks of fellowship and communion. He’d recall the fellowship, too, with the godly hosts God provided for him, such as the couple at Shunem. Just before we move to the last piece of furniture, we will mention the table at the Passover in the upper room on the eve of Calvary; and the table associated with the Lord’s Supper.
Over and over again in the Gospels we have the expression “Reclined at the table”, always associated with a meal which is fellowship and communion. The Lord’s Table, the remembrance through the bread and the cup is a remembrance and communion. We can conclude that the table and chair connects with fellowship, communion, and remembrance. I have no doubt that this was the truth of Elisha's table and chair also.
THE LAMPSTAND: We come to the third one which is the lampstand for the light. The purpose of the Golden Lampstand in the Tabernacle was to shed light on the Table of Shewbread and the Golden Altar of Incense. The Table was where the priests ate the consecrated bread while fellowshipping with one another in the light of the lampstand. The Altar of Incense offered sweet aroma to the Lord, itself, also lit by the Light from the lampstand. The Lampstand was shining with the light from the pure olive oil. All that is symbolic but what it means is this – we have a table where we eat to the glory of God, and offer the sweet aroma of prayers to the Lord, all in the illumination and energy of the Holy Spirit as we function as priests to our God. It was the same for Elisha. In summary, Elisha rested in the Lord, sitting in fellowship at his table with all his way being illuminated by the Holy Spirit. Rest, fellowship and illuminating guidance – what more could a worker of the Lord need?
These days too many obstacles we have placed in our way through affluence, carelessness, expectation and a failure to live in a simplistic style. Materialism is one of the greatest curses of our generation. Elisha did not know materialism and consequently, his channels were open to God and blessing flowed. I think we have become all too worldly and therefore fairly useless to God. It is a curse of the affluent western societies.
Throughout this account of how God looked after Elisha, we saw provision being made for him. Many years ago I was struck with a story I read from a Christian Newspaper called “New Life”. The story comes from The Sudan Interior Mission. I will close the message with this longer than usual story.
INDIAN STORY
SIM Deputy General Director Dr Howard Brant and his wife JoAnn recently spent time in Ethiopia training a team of Ethiopian missionaries, and then ministering with them in India for three months.
The ministry in South India was wonderfully used by the Lord and during the three months the team saw over 1,300 people confess Christ as Saviour. To provide an insight into this ministry Dr Brant has filed the following story of its impact in one village.
Someone found a 100-rupee note lying on the floor in the dining hall one day. They brought it to me thinking it might belong to one of our team members. I joked, saying that whoever could tell me the serial number on the bill, could have it. But as no one claimed to have lost it, I offered to keep it until we found the owner. A 100-rupee note in Indian money was worth then about US $2.95.
We continued our bus journey into South India the next morning. As we travelled along, I talked to our Ethiopian team members. I told them about the 100 rupees and asked them to check their wallets carefully. Someone had to have lost the note. For these 10 Ethiopians it was a whole day's living allowance. Someone was sure to miss it. As we bounced along the highway into South India, they checked their bags and wallets. They counted their Indian currency carefully.
India was unlike anything our team members had ever seen before, for half of these 10 Ethiopians had never been out of their own country before. These were the first foreign missionaries to be sent out by their national Churches. They were now in a strange land and everything was new - including 100 rupee notes.
When we got to the town of Sathyamangalum (Sathy) in South India, the Ethiopians were to work two-by-two with an Indian pastor. In that way the group was placed along a 120-mile strip at five centres in the State of Tamil Nadu. Four of the five teams reached their stations with no problem. But the next morning, an urgent note arrived from one of the team. They had been assigned to a village about 35 miles to the southwest from where Jo-Ann and I were staying.
Along the way the pastor from that village decided he was not ready for them, and so he dropped them off with a blind pastor only four miles out. I borrowed a motorcycle and was out in their village within the hour. The Ethiopians asked what they should do. There wasn't a house for them to stay in. Their toilet was an open field. They had no running water to bathe or wash clothes. They had no place to sleep but on the bare floor of the Church. They assured me they were not complaining; th ***(lost a few lines in the scan).***
During the week, the two Ethiopians boldly shared their faith with any and all who would listen. To their amazement, the first time they shared, a lady told them that in a dream the night before she was told she needed to believe the gospel. She became their first convert. A young engineering student believed an hour later.
Everywhere they went people started believing. Low-caste, high-caste, students, women, men - all started believing. By the end of the week, 70 Hindus had made professions of faith and were being discipled.
All the while, these two Ethiopians were being cared for by the blind pastor. His dear wife cooked rice and a few vegetables for the men regularly. When they asked about his circumstances he told them he had pastored in this village for 17 years. When he started there had been only four believers; now there were 50 families.
Formerly the Hindu people had harassed him, but now they had come to respect him. Though many had not believed, they were all listening to the Word of God regularly. The pastor got his salary of 800 rupees per month from the Church. This had to cover all the bills for himself, his wife, his two daughters, and his invalid son. The 800 rupees is worth about US$20 per month.
The Ethiopians shared some of what they had been given by their Church back in Ethiopia. The members from the little Church started feeding and entertaining the Ethiopians - even the recent converts wanted to provide a cooked meal for them.
The week finished and it was decided that the two Ethiopians should move to a nearby town where they could have a little better accommodation - nothing fancy, just a shower, toilet, and some running water. The pastor in the town Church agreed that they could go back to the little village two days a week.
With this good news, we took one of the Ethiopians back to the village to tell the blind pastor. I greeted him as a huge smile spread across his face.
"Imagine 70 people coming to Christ in one week!" he exclaimed. I asked about his wife.
"Please, sir, she is not doing well. She has been feeling sick the past few days. I wanted to send her to the hospital but, you know sir, they charge us 100 rupees to see the doctor, and we don't have 100 rupees."
We sat there drinking the tea that his daughter placed in our hands. The blind pastor sat on a ledge, his face beaming as he talked about how the village had responded so warmly to the gospel. I assured him that it was his 17 years of faithfully planting the seed of the Word of God that made it possible for these Ethiopians to reap such a bountiful harvest of souls. As I sat looking into his shining face, I thought to myself, "Seventeen years of faithful service to the King of kings - and living on US $20 a month." His wife was sick and needing only 100 rupees for a doctor’s consultation.
"Pastor," I said, "We found this 100-rupee note on the floor the other day. I think it belongs to your wife."
He knew that it was not really hers, but rather, that the Lord had provided for them yet again. A huge grin spread across his face as he started telling his wife in the Tamil language that God had provided, and tomorrow, she would go to the clinic to see the doctor.
“New Life - Thursday 18 June 1998-Page 9”
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
