THY WORD IS TRUTH
JOHN 17:17
“Just Another Impossible Birth?”
Today is the fifth Sunday after Easter and Mother’s day. And this is the third Mother’s day that I have had the privilege to preach here at Annapolis/Hopedale. Many of you here have heard the two sermon’s I gave on Mother’s day but I wonder how many remember the bible character that was the subject of the sermon in 2007 and then and 2008?
The mothers name on 2007 was Sarah and her son was Isaac. And last year in 2008 the mother’s name was Hanna and he son was named Samuel. And Hanna and Sarah had one thing in common.
They had waited most of their married lives without becoming pregnant and bearing a child. And in fact, when both Sarah and Hanna conceived they were past the normal child bearing years so the birth of their sons Isaac and Samuel were impossible births.
So both these sons were exceptional sons for they both had supernatural births. And the faith that these mothers had sets them apart and draws attention to them and to their offspring. For their faith goes beyond what their minds tell them is possible.
In fact Abraham and Sarah both laughed when they were told by God that they would have a son. So much so that they named their son Isaac which in Hebrew means laughter.
And the faith of Hanna was clearly as strong as Sarah's although she did not laugh when she conceived but she challenged God by praying that if God would give her a son she would dedicate him to the lord and give that son back to the Lord.
And when she gave birth to Samuel she took him to the Temple and she gave Samuel to the high priest Eli and the boy was raised in the Temple and became the first prophet in the age of the prophets and Samuel anointed the first king of Israel and that was King Saul.
But when King Saul was rejected by God, Samuel then anointed the next King David.
And today the sermon is about a woman who husband is too old to have a son.
It is not clear from this story whether the Sulemmite woman womb was barren here. But she is childless.
Did you notice how many women that were barren have sons late in life in the bible. The Sarah and Hannah stories are a repeat and we heard this story repeated a forth time in the New Testament reading for today.
The birth of John the Baptist to his mother Elizabeth is the 5th sequel to Gods supernatural birth stories leading up to God’s own Son’s supernatural birth to the virgin Marry.
God does not just spring the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ on us but leads us to belief by several supernatural births of important bible characters before his miraculous son is born.
And if we stop and think about the sequence of supernatural birth stories what was the purpose of these 4 births preceding the virgin birth of Christ?
God is trying to tell us that God is behind the births of those character that He chooses to reveal himself to the world and also to his power of control nature for He is the author of nature. He is the creator and can call into existence any human being he chooses.
And more importantly, it implies that God is in control of all human births!
And God testifies in the birth of his prophet Jeremaiah that God knew Jeremiah before he was born implying that he knew all these babies before they were born also.
But the major point of all these supernatural births of Isaac, Samuel, John the Baptist prefigure the supernatural virgin birth of Jesus, God’s own son.
And so does this woman from the town of Shunem. For that is all we know about her, for God did not give us her name only that she was a Shunemite , a woman that lived in the town of Shunem . And there is nothing special that I could find about the city of Shunnem except that is was in the region of promised land given to Jacob’s son Issachar.
But let us look at this third story of a woman too old to have children and how her son point’s to the Son of God and what Jesus would be in His life and what Jesus would do for all of mankind in his life.
And there is a twist to this story that points directly to Jesus.
And this story takes place just where we are in the Bible Fast Forward Class.
We have just finished the story of the death of King Solomon and the division of the monarch into two kingdoms.
And the division of Israel into two kingdom precedes the appearance of the prophets Elijah and Elisha during the reign of evil king Ahab by 50 years.
So what was so special about the Shunemmite’s woman faith?
We have to fast forward to the prophets given to the Northern Kingdom of Israel containing the ten tribes and their king Ahab his evil queen Jezabel. And the prophets that were given to call these two monarchs to account were Elijah and Elisha.
Both these prophets were contemporaries meaning that they lived and preached at the same time under the reign of Ahab and that they knew each other.
You may remember at the Seder dinner last month on Maunday Thursday I taught about how the Prophet Elijah was be taken up into heaven in a whirlwind in a chariot of fire and that the Jews always expected his return to earth because he did not die and because his return to earth was promised in the last verse of the Old Testament in the book of Malachai.
Remember that Elijah and Elisha were standing together next to each other when Elijah was supernaturally taken up to heaven and Elisha was left behind with the mantel of Elijah’s ministry as the man of God.
And here enters the Shunemmite woman to testify that Elisha was a man of God for she it is her hospitality to Elisha that identifies him as a man of God and with the supernatural powers that you would expect for a man of God.
If we recall in the Old Testament reading this morning, this woman was well to do and she urged Elisha to stay in her house for a meal ao when he came by and he stayed with her.
And she said to her husband, “I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man from God.” Let’s make a small room on the roof and put a bed and a table and chair and a lamp for him so that he can stay there whenever he comes to us.”
The notes of the NIV Study bible tell us that this is the first time that the word “Holy” is applied to a prophet of God in the bible. And when Elisha came to visit he asked his servant “Gehazi to call the Shunemmite woman to him. And Elisha said to her, “You have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can we do for you in return? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of his army? But she replied, “I have a home among my people.” And the notes of the study bible tell us that she did not want anything from the king and this was her humble state of mind that she took comfort from her own tribe and it elders.
Elisha asked Gahazi what he could do for her, instead?
Gehazi answers, “Well, she has no son and her husband is old”. Elisha visits with her and the Elisha gives this woman a startling revelation. Elisha tell her, “About this time next year you will hold a son in your arms”. “No my lord”, she responds, “Please do not mislead your servant, O man of God”.
But the woman becomes pregnant and the next year gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.
And the boy grew and one day went out into the field with his father and the reapers. And suddenly he complained to this father, “My head, my head! And his father told them “Carry him to his mother!” And the woman held him in her lap until noon and then he died! But then the woman did something very strange. Instead of immediately telling everyone in her grief that her son had died in her arms she gets up and told no one. She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God and then shut the door and went out. She called to her husband, “please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and then return”. “Why are you going today”, her husband asked? It is not the New Moon or the Sabbath?
“It’s alright”, she said. She saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Lead on, and don’t slow down unless I tell you. So she came up to Mt Carmel. And when she reached the man of God on the mountain she took a hold of his feet and Gahazi tried to push her away. “Leave her alone!” said Elisha, she is in bitter distress, but the LORD has hidden it from me and I don’t know why. And the woman says to Elisha, “Did I ask you for a son, my Lord and didn’t I tell you “don’t raise my hopes”?
And then Elijah gave Gahazi these orders, “ Take my staff in you hand and run. If you meet anyone, do not greet him and of anyone greet you do not answer, “Lay my staff on the boys face”. But when Gahazi went as did as he was told and he came back to Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened!” And when Elisha came to the house the boy was lying dead on the couch. He went on, shut the door on the two of them Gahazi and the woman, and he prayed to the LORD. He got on the bed and lay upon the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. Elisha got up and walked back and forth in the room and them stretched out upon the boy once more. The boy sneezed seven time and open his eyes. Elisha called to Gahazi, “Call the Shunemmite” and Gahazi did. And Elisha said to her, “Take your son.”
And this is exactly what the prophet Elijah has done before for the woman of Zarephath in 1st Kings 17 when he laid upon her son who had died three times and that boy also came back to life. And that woman’s response to the Elijah was, “know I know that you are a man from God and the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.
Let Me Close In Prayer:
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