In the fourth and the sixth chapters of II Kings are three brief stories of miracles—three problems of the sons of the prophets.
The first story is found in II Kings 4:38–41. When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land. As the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, he said to his servant, “Put on the large pot and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.” Then one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine and gathered from it his lap full of wild gourds, and came and sliced them into the pot of stew, for they did not know what they were. So they poured it out for the men to eat. And it came about as they were eating of the stew, that they cried out and said, “O man of God, there is death in the pot.” And they were unable to eat. But he said, “Now bring meal.” And he threw it into the pot, and he said, “Pour it out for the people that they may eat.” Then there was no harm in the pot.
As the prophets of God come forth upon the earth again, this “death in the pot” becomes a serious problem. It is the problem of presenting a pure word for the people to partake of. In II Corinthians 3:6 Paul said, …the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
A man can preach the Scriptures, yet the way he handles them and what he says from his spirit can minister death. The time will come when false prophets will speak nearly the same words that they find written in the Living Word, but it will be death. People hearing it will think it is the same Living Word, but there will be death in the pot. …the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
No matter how close a word is to the Living Word, if it comes forth without divine order and without the anointing of the Holy Spirit, that letter will kill. Many people may appear to move in a gift, but if there is a flow of death, it is not a true gift from God. Watch for this because the Lord has spoken that false prophets will rise and, if possible, deceive the very elect (Matthew 24:24). They will try to appear to be of God.
Organizers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars setting up various campaigns. They draw great numbers of people, but it is not evidence of people coming because they are hungry; it is a promotional advertising scheme all the way. There is no real change in the people. There is no life, no anointing ministered to them. It resembles life for a while, but it is death.
This is a day of much death in Christianity. A minister today has to be somewhat like a mortician who injects fluids into a corpse to make it look better and waxes the face, giving it rosy cheeks so that it will appear to be sleeping. It is not sleeping; it is dead! The Spirit has left.
Many churches are trying to disguise their true state—dead. As Revelation 3:1 says, …thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Their main effort is to make the corpse look good, as if it were merely sleeping and at any moment would rise up and speak the word of the Lord. A church like that cannot rise up and speak the word of the Lord because there is death in the pot. Every man brings forth his own interpretation. He does whatever he wants to do. He does not build a church according to divine order. He starts it, and it becomes as much a part of private enterprise as any business. He could have started a service station, a grocery store, or a hardware store and made money. Instead he chooses to start a church, and he makes money on it. It is a private enterprise, not a church. That is not God’s plan.
To have all the trappings of life without a Living Word is not what God desires for His people. In the guise of building orphanages and supporting missionaries, Babylon has raised much money. But what percentage of it reaches the children or the missionaries and what percentage supports the executives who love to sit in their fancy offices and play God? They have a name that they live, but they are dead. Death is in the pot. What is the answer? It is the meal of the Living Word.
Many churches that do not have a Living Word and divine order let everyone who wants to participate in their services do so. They say their pulpit is free. Yes, and everyone who wants to can throw in his wild gourds. Everyone puts in whatever he wants and preaches his own doctrine; he is free to say anything he wants. As a result, the people become as sheep dying in the aisles.
A pulpit should not be free for just anyone to speak; it should only be open to a man who is anointed of God and led by God. Even then he speaks only when there is a witness among the brethren that he has a word from God. The pulpit is not free in one sense, yet it is truly free in that it is watched over so that the pure word can have free course. The letter will kill, but the Spirit will make alive. The first problem of the prophet is to have a pure word.
Now let us look at the next story in II Kings 4:42–44. Now a man came from Baal-shalishah, and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And he said, “Give them to the people that they may eat.” And his attendant said, “What, shall I set this before a hundred men?” (That gives you an idea of the size of the school of the prophets.) But he said, “Give them to the people that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left over.’ ” So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.
I call this the miracle of the leftovers. The second miracle involves the problem of inadequate provision, the problem that there never seems to be enough.
We rejoice in all that we are receiving from the Lord, but the cry of our hearts is still that we do not have enough of God. He has not released enough of Himself behind the word His people speak. How we have waited and cried and yearned for the Lord! But now the day is on us when God is releasing a great deal more than we are walking in. With great diligence we must make an effort to walk in it. God has given us even more than we can walk in, and we must sacrifice the lesser for the greater and do just the most important things. Nevertheless, we can do more than what we are doing now. We can reach in with an anointing of the Lord to really accomplish what He sets before us.
Is there enough of God to meet your need? When there seems to be a problem of inadequate provision, you can look to God’s Word and see that He is the God of leftovers. He always produces a little more than the human capacity is able to receive. David said, “My cup runneth over” (Psalms 23:5). When the Lord starts to pour tea in your cup, He does not know when to stop. He fills the cup until it overflows and fills the saucer. The Lord intends that there shall not be enough room to receive what He gives (Malachi 3:10). He is not a God who falls just short of meeting the need, but He is the God who will always give a little bit more. He took five loaves and two small fishes, blessed and broke them, and fed the multitudes. After they ate, twelve full baskets of the untouched fragments were gathered (Matthew 14:17–20). He is always a God of leftovers.
When the human heart has received all that it can possibly hold, there is still some of God left over. God can send us blessing after blessing until we beg the Lord to stop because we can not hold any more. This next level in our walk with God will bring that experience. These are the problems of prophets. We shall see God do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). When God moves, that is the way He does it.
As we move in God by faith, there will still be the problems of adverse circumstances, as well as demon assault and the problem of the old flesh nature coming up. Most people who are serving the Lord have never repented deeply enough for the Lord to deal adequately with the depth of their needs and with the flesh within them.
They have asked the Lord to forgive them, but they have not dealt with the deep responses and bonds that have been created by wrong ways of living. How many young men are suddenly confronted by some of their old friends and are coaxed back into their old ways of life? The repentance did not go deep enough to break the bonds and conditioning. God must free His prophets and reverse the downward pull of their flesh. It is the cross experience that accomplishes this.
Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “Behold now, the place before you where we are living is too limited for us. Please let us go to the Jordan, and each of us take from there a beam, and let us make a place there for ourselves where we may live.” So he said, “Go.” Then one said, “Please be willing to go with your servants.” And he answered, “I shall go.” So he went with them; and when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, “Alas, my master! For it was borrowed.” II Kings 6:1–5. This occurred at the beginning of the Iron Age in this section of Canaan. In those days metal implements were so rare that oftentimes only the king would carry a sword into battle. Even the ploughs and farming implements were made of hardwood. An axe head was very rare, and the sons of the prophets had lost the one they had borrowed.
Then the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” And when he showed him the place, he cut off a stick, and threw it in there, and made the iron float. And he said, “Take it up for yourself.” So he put out his hand and took it. Verse 6, 7.
The prophet made the iron float by throwing a stick into the water. This story has a spiritual significance that we should not miss. If there is going to be a miracle that reverses the downward pull of our flesh, it will come because the cross of Christ is thrown into our lives. At Marah the waters in the wilderness were so bitter that Moses had to cut down a tree and throw it into the waters in order to heal them (Exodus 15:23–26). This symbolizes the work of the cross in our lives.
You will always have the pull of gravity. You will always notice the downward pull of your flesh. Even though you are a Christian, you will feel the pressure of futility, satanic assault, and problems. You will feel the discouragement and harassment that come. The downward pull of discouragement comes because you look at your circumstances or your finances and they are not encouraging. What can keep you from becoming so discouraged with yourself that you go into a valley of defeat? Can anything change that force? Yes, the work of the cross. God wants to defy gravity for you and reverse it, so that instead of a downward pull in your flesh, there will be an upward pull.
Do you find it easier to relax and to have fun than to spend hours in intercession because a burden is on you? The things of the Spirit are still too much of a discipline to most Christians, and they do not fall naturally into doing them. They must discipline themselves to do them, but the pleasures of the world seem to come naturally. It is the downward pull. If they let their lives run their natural course, soon they find that they need to seek the Lord because their lives are on too low a level.
You do not automatically become spiritual. What do you have to do to lose out with God? Nothing. Just let the natural gravity pull you down. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. Matthew 24:12.
The power of sin around you, the power of an evil age will pull you down. Will there ever be a change? Yes, “the house of the Lord will be established above the hills, and all the nations will flow into it” (Isaiah 2:2). Instead of the downward pull, there will be an upward pull in the days just ahead. Instead of your being defeated by the harassment and futility of circumstances, the iron will float; and your desire for expansion and for doing the will of God can be fulfilled. This will happen through the work of the cross in your life.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Galatians 5:16. A person may say he was walking with God, worshiping and serving the Lord, but one day he was overcome by temptation and lost out with God.
Such a man is fooling himself. If you are walking in the Spirit, that does not happen to you. It only happens when you stop walking in the Spirit.
When you are not worshiping, listening to the Lord, nor believing His word, then you are in spiritual danger. You do not lose out with God when you go to a beer parlor. You lose out with God when you stop pressing in and walking in the Spirit. If you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. First you stop walking in the Spirit, and then you get in trouble.
For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Galatians 5:14–18.
When you walk in the Spirit, you are not under the condemnation and force of the Law. When someone is moving in the Spirit and the love of God is flowing through him, you do not have to command him not to kill; he would not do it anyway. The Law does not even apply to you when you are walking in the Spirit. You are operating on a higher level than the application of the Law. But when you walk in the flesh, the Law applies to every single instance. Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. When you live in the Spirit, you are not under the Law.
When satellites are sent far enough into space, gravity does not pull on them. Theoretically, they will sail around forever because they are so high that the pull of gravity does not affect them. If we live in heavenly places and we walk in the Spirit, the gravitational pull of the flesh will disappear for us. The miracle of the axe head is an illustration of Elisha’s spiritual level. He was able to reverse gravity and make the iron float.
God will be with you and help you only if you submit to the work of the cross being done in your life. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Galatians 5:24. You come to an end of the flesh because you believe for God to give you that deep experience of the work of the cross in your life.
But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:14. Paul is speaking of a mutual death.
Have you watched the world die? Once it was a lovely, glamorous thing that attracted you. But as you walked on with God and the cross was experienced in your life, the attraction you used to feel started dying; the pull and glamour were no longer effective on you. The whole world is based upon an illusion of glamour.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. I John 2:16, 17.
We must be righteous before God and come to live in the Spirit. We must have a mutual crucifixion. The world is crucified to us, and we are crucified to the world. We look at the world, and it is dead to us, and we are dead to it. We no longer are attracted by shows or dances. We feel no desire to steal, kill, rob, or take drugs or alcohol to help us face life. All these have their appeal to those of the world, but our desires have been changed from the lusts of the world. We find ourselves desiring to do other things. Now we want to bless our brother. Instead of taking what he has away from him, we want to help him and to give to him. Gravity has been reversed for us.
The people of the world think we are crazy. In the world no one does anything for nothing; everyone has a selfish motive and wants something out of the deal. But we come to freely give, with no strings or restraints on our giving. When we come to the place where we just want to give and to be a blessing to one another, then we know that gravity has been reversed for us. Selfishness, lusts, self-seeking, and that love of the world are dead. The world is dead to us. It does not even move us. We are dead to the world so that we can be alive to God.
Your crucifixion is not just identification with Christ, but it is an identical experience with Christ. Throw the cross into the stream of your life. It will reverse the gravity. It will reverse that downward pull of depression and discouragement that easily comes upon you.
These three miracles of Elisha are the problems that a prophet has, and they will be the same problems we will have: the problem of a pure word, the problem of inadequate provision for our needs, and the problem of adverse circumstances and their downward pull on our lives. We do not need to walk any longer defeated and discouraged. Let us reverse the pull of gravity and let that upward pull start working in our lives. It can be done very easily. That on which we feed is what will control our lives. When we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Galatians 6:7b, 8.
This was written to Christians, not to sinners. A sinner cannot sow to the Spirit; he does not know anything about the Spirit. His spirit is dead. The sinner does not reap corruption. He is already dead and in corruption. It is the Christian that will determine the outcome of his life by the way he believes and the way he experiences the cross in his life. God grant that we go from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (II Corinthians 3:18).