May 14, 2017 - Elisha's Room

TONY & MICHELLE PAWLAK

MEMORY VERSE

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.

Psalm 18:2a

As we learned, Elijah was a great prophet of God who did great things in God's name.  But all good things must come to an end.  God saw that it was nearing time for Elijah to leave this Earth so He decided that Elijah should begin to train his replacement.

God sent Elijah to find a man named Elisha.  He found Elisha plowing his fields. He went and threw his mantle over Elisha to symbolize calling Elisha to follow him.  Elisha knew that this meant leaving his life and all he had known.  So Elisha decided to slaughter his oxen, all 24 of them, burn the plows, and give the meat to his people.  He

then went and followed Elijah.

Elijah and Elisha were together for many years while Elisha was being trained.  Then it was time for Elijah to leave this Earth.  God had decided that Elijah should not have

to experience death so one day, while the two men were together, a chariot of fire came down between them to separate them.  Then a whirlwind came and took Elijah to Heaven, causing him to drop his mantle.  Elisha picked up the mantle and became Elijah's successor.  

Elisha, as the head of the prophets, did a lot of traveling doing God's will.  Many times this took through through a town called Shunem.  While he was there, a kind Shunemite couple would take him in and feed him. One day the wife had a great idea.  She

told her husband that they should build an extra room on

top of their house.  Elisha was so grateful that he wanted to do something kind in return so he asked his servant, Gehazi, what they needed.  

Gehazi said, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.” (II Kings 4:14b) So Elisha told the Shunamite woman,  “At this season, about

this time next year, you shall embrace a son.” (II Kings 4:16a) The Shunamite woman thought that this was impossible and asked Elisha not to give her false hope.  However, she DID have a son just like Elisha had said.

When the child was older he would go out to work with his father in the field.  One day he had a terrible pain in his head and his father had the servants take him home to his mother.  She laid his head on her lap until noon when the boy died. There was only one thing the mother could think to do.  She left her son on Elisha's bed and set out to find him because he was not in town at that time.  

When she found Elisha she told him what had happened.

 Elisha and the Sunamite woman headed out for the house

but he sent Gehazi ahead with his staff saying, "...lay my staff on the face of the child." (II Kings 4:29c)  Gehazi did as he was told but nothing happened.  He ran back and told Elisha that the boy was still dead.

When Elisha arrived, he

went into the room and prayed over the boy.  He then stretched himself out over the body and it started getting warm.  So Elisha prayed again and stretched himself over the body once more and the boy sneezed seven times.  Seeing that the boy was alive once more, Elisha gave him back to his mother.  

It is easy to say that we need to trust God even though we don't always understand His ways.  It is much harder to have faith when times are hard and everything seems to be going wrong.  We need to remember that God loves us and is watching over us even when things look the darkest.  That is when we need to hold on to our faith and draw nearer to God.