do you have a sermon on 2 Kings 7:3-19?

Answer 1

Do you mean a "canned" sermon that's already been prepared or a "off the top of my head" and hopefully Spirit inspired one? There are links to sermons on that passage on the Free Stuff page of my website like on the Sermon Audio link or on the Blue Letter Bible link.

http://web.express56.com/~bromar/

2 Kings 7:3 Now there were four men who were lepers at the entrance to the gate. And they said to one another, "Why are we sitting here until we die? 4 If we say, 'Let us enter the city,' the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die."

5 So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there. 6 For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, "Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us." 7 So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives.

8 And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them. 9 Then they said to one another, "We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king's household."

10 So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, "We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were." 11 Then the gatekeepers called out, and it was told within the king's household. 12 And the king rose in the night and said to his servants, "I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry. Therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, 'When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.'" 13 And one of his servants said, "Let some men take five of the remaining horses, seeing that those who are left here will fare like the whole multitude of Israel who have already perished. Let us send and see."

14 So they took two horsemen, and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying, "Go and see." 15 So they went after them as far as the Jordan, and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipment that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. And the messengers returned and told the king. 16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD.

17 Now the king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. And the people trampled him in the gate, so that he died, as the man of God had said when the king came down to him. 18 For when the man of God had said to the king, "Two seahs of barley shall be sold for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour for a shekel, about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria," 19 the captain had answered the man of God, "If the LORD himself should make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?" And he had said, "You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it." 20 And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate and he died.

The basic message seems to be that lost sinners who are without hope and who are symbolized by the lepers will be provided for while proud people who doubt God like the captain will die.

Answer 2

Now with all the rich theological, prophetic, poetic, visionary, moral passages in the Hebrew scriptures or the Christian testament, why would you choose to do a sermon on this clever O Henry-type story?

But let's suppose, this is a test question in a homiletics class. One thing I learned in such a class many years ago is that every good story has a three-point sermon lurking inside.

You don't have to pretend that this is what God said or meant. You can simply determine what messages humans might find in the story. Use your imagination. (And don't resort to the canned ones and the artificial think tanks that so many preachers subject us to until we simply turn them off.)

In about three minutes, I came up with what this story talks to me about: three ways to learn or not to learn: (1) The way of the four lepers: Self-exposure and self-examination; (2) The way of the king: Caution and counsel; (3) The way of the gatekeeper: Arrogance and absolutism. Each of them has to learn how to survive; each of them has a decision to make; each of them takes different routes.

(1) The lepers decide to take a risk: ". . . let's go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender." They reason through the alternatives, decide to expose themselves, and learn from experience. What they find are the riches of life, and they live to the fullest. But then they stop and question their own behavior. They submit to self-examination: "This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves." So they share their "gospel" with the gatekeepers to the city.

(2) The king isn't so certain that their news is, in fact, good news. He has questions in his mind and can't sleep at night. His doubts make him cautious: maybe the Arameans are simply trying to trick us. But he invites counsel from his sensible officers, and they come up with a plan: send a deputation to check things out (an investigating committee, if you will). Delegate. Rely on the experience and wisdom of others.

(3) The gatekeeper heard the "good news" from the visionary Elisha, good news indeed for a city suffering a siege and famine: "By this time tomorrow there will be so much bread in the city that it will sell cheap, cheap, cheap." But the gatekeeper is an arrogant man; after all, it is he who stands next to the king and holds up his hand; it is he who keeps the gate, keeping vagrants and false teachers out. So arrogantly and with absolute certainty of his common-sense preconception, he says, "Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, should this happen?" He is unwilling to expose himself or examine his presupposition; he is unwilling to take counsel with other sensible men; he has no respect at all for an imaginative, visionary man--even though his message turns out to be in harmony with the story told by the lepers. Why would THE gatekeeper for the king listen to lepers and a seer? So he closes his mind and loses his opportunity to learn: "the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died."

The lepers might be called liberals: they take a chance, and they share their "good news." The king might be called a conservative: be careful how you react to so-called "good news," but invite the counsel of sensible people. The gatekeeper--well, label him as you choose, but don't vote for him: he's too arrogant and too sure of his own narrow thinking to pay any attention to what either the liberals, or the visionary, or even the wise counselors tell him. "Even God Himself couldn't relieve our famine and give us bread that cheap," he insists. And so, of course, he doesn't prepare himself for the onslaught of the crowds if, in fact, the lepers and the seer turn out to be right.

Two ways of learning (three actually, for Elisha is a visionary who walks with God), and one way of not learning.

Look around you. Do you see any unlearners today? Are you an unlearner? A person so sure he already knows the truth that he can't hear the "good news" no matter what form it takes: personal expeience, cautious counsel, or mystic vision.

You see, I learned in that homiletics class how to make a good sermon out of just about any story. But I chose not to enter the ministry.

I hadn't learned to see the "hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around." That took years and years of experience, wise consel, and imaginative walking with Spirit.

Job's friends are gatekeepers. Job learns to learn.

You see, the four lepers are simply "sinners without hope," as Martin S summarizes. They are open to learn and willing to share. And the gatekeeper isn't simple a proud man who doubts God. He's an arrogant absolutist who can't learn.

Most of us are kings who rely on our counselos and delegate our task to others. That's OK. We'd be better off if we were lepers, exposing ourelves and examining ourselves, ultimately sharing our "good news." Of course, we all ultimately yearn to see "hills full of horses and chariots of fire" or to hear a Voice out of the whirlwind.

Blessings upon you, and upon us all!