The Kingdom to many is an intangible. It is something afar off, a mystical land yet to come as we wait for the Messiah to usher it in. We are an anxious bride looking for the coming of our groom.
The church throughout the ages has looked forward with the hopes that the future would bring brighter days. As we examined earlier the time and condition of Noah’s day as well as the days of the birth of Christ, we have discovered the very same condition. A forward-looking hope, for a kingdom that would empower a man to live over his circumstances, rather than under them. Some believers are today, are like many of those days gone by. Looking and hoping. Like virgins who anxiously trim lamps and look ahead.
Now there is nothing wrong with trimmed lamps. What we need to be conscious of is that lamps that are neatly trimmed are as useless as no lamps at all, unless they are burning. It is the burning lamp that we are looking for. Rather, the world is
looking for.
It falls to a generation in time to be the generation that brings a revelation of love to a world hungry for it. It falls to you and I to be the ones who walk out of the room with our lamps blazing into a world, and announce that all are invited to the wedding. Both sides of a wedding invite guests. Whom will you bring? Whom have you invited?
If the parable of the talents teaches us anything it teaches us that we need to make investments within the world system we find ourselves in. What would these investments look like? They would look like us going out to find vessels, people, to bring with us to the wedding that no one will want to miss.
2 Kings 4: 1-7
These few verses I have made a study of for several years. Sitting and meditating over them over and over again. Here are some things I would like to pull out of these verses and link them into our conversation today.
The creditor is coming to take the children of the widow away as his slaves. Lawfully they are his. There is a debt that is owing and needs to be paid. It needs to be paid in full. The prophet approached does not call on soldiers to protect the innocent. For
the innocent are not making this request.
This widow has lost her source of provision. Her husband, her love, is gone and she is alone with her children without the means to make provision. She now seeks out another source to meet her needs. So she goes to her husband’s boss. The Prophets prophet. Elisha, the head of the prophets has this widow approach him making the statement that her husband is dead, but she is sure to also indicate that he was Elisha’s servant, a fellow prophet. She makes it clear that the day of doom is approaching for her, that the creditor is coming to take her children. These children represent her future hope of survival. They will grow and live to provide for their mother, but not if they are taken as slaves to pay this debt.
She is asked what she has in her house and the answer is nothing. Now she has taken every opportunity she had to make this debt disappear. She had sold everything she had at the biggest garage sale her neighborhood had ever seen. One by one the items of her home vanished to the lowest bidder. Neighbors, who had known her whole life long, now take advantage of her desperate state
benefitting by here circumstances and buying up what they could. But it is not enough. Still, she comes up short. Too short to gain support from anyone. Too much is owing to manage the shortfall.
Some historians argue that this dead prophet is Obadiah, who feeds many prophets while King Ahab hunted down those he could to kill them off. Nevertheless, here she now stands, indebted and desperate. Elisha asks her what she has to offer to solve this problem. He is seeking a partnership with faith. Something to mix with faith. All she has left is the last keepsake, the precious symbol of her undying love for the man no longer with her. This small vile of anointing oil that was so important to her husband. It was a potent perfume of anointing oil. Some will translate this oil incorrectly as cooking grease. This is so not the correct
interpretation. The Hebrew word is Shemen. Fragrant oil, as used by prophets.