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[0:00] In 2 Kings chapter 4, we'll start reading. This is what I've been wrestling with where to begin reading from.

[0:12] Let's just start reading kind of where I left off there in verse 19. 2 Kings chapter 4 says, and he said unto his father, Now this is after this only child, the Shunamite woman, and his father had gone out into the field, with his father.

[0:30] So he said to his father, my head, my head, and he said to a lad, carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon and then died.

[0:42] And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God and shut the door upon him and went out. And she called unto her husband and said, Send me, I pray, that he were the young men, and one of the asses that I may run to the man of God and come again.

[1:00] And he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath. And she said, It shall be well. It shall be well.

[1:11] Her son had just died. Her son had just died. And I don't even read about her shedding a tear when it happened. I ain't gonna say that she didn't, but the pages of Scripture, the Holy Ghost did not inspire the writer of kings to write anything about any type of mourning that this woman showed, any type of tear that she may have shed.

[1:34] She simply carried him up, and she didn't put him on her own bed. She didn't lay him on the floor, didn't put him in a lazy boy there in the living room. She carried him up to the man of God's bed, and that's where she laid.

[1:47] She had faith in not the man of God, but in the God that the man of God served. She had faith that something could happen. She didn't know exactly what, but she had been promised a son.

[2:01] She had been promised a child by the man of God. And she saw that as a promise from that man's God that she would have a child, not that the God would give her that child and take him away, but that she would have a child, that she could rear, that she could change, that she could have until her dying day.

[2:23] This woman had that much faith. So when she called, flew to the father of this child, and said, send me a servant, send me an ass, that I can go to the man of God, and then come back to this place.

[2:37] And he asked the question, why are you going? There's no new mood. There's no new Sabbath. That shows me that this woman knew something about religion. She knew something about worship.

[2:49] She knew something about the God of Elijah. And she said, it is well. Her child had just died, but she had enough faith and trust in God to say, it is well.

[3:06] And then we go on just a little bit further in the scripture. Folks, I got two boys. There's something like that happened to me. I would not act like this woman.

[3:16] I can tell you that with the utmost faith. Knowing myself, knowing how I am, I would not have the faith that this shunna my woman here had.

[3:26] She has more faith. She exhibits more faith here than I could ever exhibit in my life in a similar circumstance. She tells the father of the child, her own husband, it is well.

[3:40] And she goes on. She says that she settled an ass, and said, do it to her servant. Drive and go forward. Sly, not that writing for me, except I bid thee.

[3:50] So she went and came under the man of God to Mount Carmel. And it came to pass when the man of God saw her a far off. Then he said unto Gihazia's servant, behold, yonder is that shunna my run now, I pray thee, to meet her and say unto her, is it well with thee?

[4:08] Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child? And she answered, it is well. Twice now, she has given the answer. It is well. Her child was laying dead at her own home.

[4:20] She had just traveled out into God, knows how far to find out the man of God, to find out the one that represented God.

[4:30] She had traveled out here. The servant shows up Gihazia. He comes on the scene and he asks, is it well with you? Is it okay with the father of the child, your husband?

[4:42] And is it okay with the child? And she simply answers, it is well. She was exhibiting as she trusted in God to fulfill the promise he had told her through his manalasha, that she would have a child.

[4:58] How much trust and how much faith do we exhibit in the God that has saved our souls? If we got faith that he saved us, if we're trusting him to save us, if we're trusting him to get us home, if we're trusting that we have been washed clean and washed pure and washed white as snow in the blood of Jesus Christ, then why can't we not trust him with everything else in our lives?

[5:24] Why can't we exhibit the same trust that this woman had? I'll tell you why, because we live in a time we live in this age, we live in this era right now where we have learned and been conditioned to trust man, to trust invention, to trust doctors, to trust medicine, to trust everything more than we trust God.

[5:49] That's why we have a hard time, that's why we have a hard time having the same faith that this woman did. You look at Peter over in the New Testament, a big storm rolled up when disciples were on the boat, Jesus had stayed on the land, man, big storm rolls up on the sea, and all the disciples, hey, they were shaken with fear, those disciples, most of them were fishermen, they had seen storms like that, they knew what the wind was capable of, they knew what the rain was capable of, but yet they feared, and Jesus came walking to them, and Peter, God bless Peter, he's the only one in the boat that said, Lord, if it's you, bid me that I can come to you, he had that much trust and that much faith that he could walk out on the same water that Jesus Christ was walking on, and Peter stepped out of the boat at the command of Jesus Christ.

[6:49] And he stood there on the water, he's the only person in scripture other than Jesus Christ, I can read about that, that could walk on water, he had that much trust in Jesus, that much trust.

[7:02] Now I understand, you go on, and the scripture says that the winds became boisterous, and that got Peter a little bit off kilter, we would say, God is mine somewhere else, and he went down in the water, but Jesus didn't leave him there, praise God.

[7:19] Hey, when Peter went down in the water, he said, Lord, save me, and that's precisely what Jesus did, he reached down on the water where Peter was, picked him up out of the water, put him right back in the boat, that's what my God does, he trusted Jesus when he stepped out on the water, and he trusted Jesus when he went down in to the water, although his faith and his trust had faltered just a little bit before that, Jesus did not leave him to die.

[7:51] And he won't do it to me, I'm his child, you better believe I wouldn't leave one of my boys to die, I'd do everything I could to help them, you wouldn't leave one of your children to die if they were in a certain circumstance, why do we think that our Heavenly Father would treat us in such a way knowing that we have claimed him as Father, he's claimed us as sons and daughters, hallelujah, he'll be with us all the way even to the end, praise God.

[8:20] That's my God, the same God, I just shoot him up, one moment, trust me, the same God that Abraham trusted, same God that Isaac trusted, same God that Jacob trusted, did they falter, you better believe that they did, did Peter falter, you better believe that they did, everyone of them, did Paul mess up, of course he did, all of sin and come short of the glory of God, and hey, that ain't just our past sins, we won't continue to sin till our dying day, we'll have simple thoughts, we'll have simple actions, we'll have simple speech, everything about us is simple, your flesh is simple, our minds are simple, but praise God, hey, when he cleaned me and he took out that stony heart, he didn't leave an empty space there, he put in a heart of place, something that was soft that he could mold, that he could need, he could soften it even more than when it first began, hallelujah.

[9:19] And the more he does that, the more I can trust him. The more times I mess up and God picks me back up, the more I learn, I can trust him.

[9:31] You look at Isaac over in the, or not Isaac Abraham, and further back in the Old Testament, wherever we're at right now, Abraham was stricken in years, Sarah had died, he'd demburied her in a cave called Makpila, he'd demburied his wife in a cave, the very next chapter, you see Abraham concerned about his boy Isaac, you see Abraham sending his own servants, I don't know if it was Eleazar or not Eleazar, hey, when Eleazar was brought up, that was 50 years before, where we're talking about right now, Eleazar could have very well been dead by that point, but either way, it was a servant that Abraham trusted, and it was a servant that he brought to him, he said, you need to go back to my home land, you need to find a bride for Isaac, his wife had just died, he had just buried Sarah in that cave, but he was concerned about finding a bride for Isaac, Isaac was 40 years old at that point, why he wasn't married, I don't know, it doesn't matter, but hey, that shows me one thing though,

[10:38] Abraham wasn't pushing the boy, Abraham waited on God, because Abraham had learned to trust God, he called on his servant, he said, go to my home land, said, Isaac don't need to marry one of these Canaanite women, why was that, it wasn't the race, it wasn't the color of their skin, it wasn't the way they dressed, it wasn't nothing like that, it was because there was a covenant between God and Abraham, and that covenant stretched to the people of Abraham, and Abraham knew, hey, these Canaanite women, they don't know nothing about my God, even a new convert wasn't even going to be good enough for his boy Isaac, he wanted somebody that had been reared and trained in the ways of Jehovah God, in the actions of Jehovah God, and in what little bit of word there may have been in Jehovah God, the little bit of speech that they had been giving, the details that they would have been telling one another over the years about their God, he wanted a woman that knew about that God to marry his son, why, because the seed was promised through Isaac, he didn't want some half-breed Canaanite woman, he wanted a full-planned believer in God.

[11:55] Amen. So he sent a servant, sent a servant, what a servant, that servant's name is never mentioned by the way, that servant's name's not, you know why, because that whole narrative, from Genesis I believe it's Genesis 24, Genesis 25 somewhere around in there, it would last for a couple of chapters, never once is that servant's name mentioned, it wasn't about the servant, it was about Isaac and his wife Rebecca, he sent the servant, he said, you go to my homeland, you get her from my own people, now Rebecca would have been Isaac's second cousin, second cousin or first cousin once removed, if you'd rather phrase it like that, but either way she was the second cousin, but folks she was full-fledged, she was full-fledged, she was on that seed that Abraham was looking for, and Abraham not too long before Sarah died, he had heard of his brother Nahor, he had heard where he was living at, and he had heard of his granddaughter that he had named Rebecca, and he told his servant, he said, you go to my country, you find a woman that's suitable for my boy Isaac, and the servant left, and folks listen, it wasn't just an overnight journey, that where he was going from Canaan, where they were at, over into Nahor, where they were going was about a 500 mile journey, he would have spent days, he would have spent weeks in that desert on Camelback, going across that country, but when he came to the town, hey, he stopped there at the well, he didn't wait, hey, he'd been praying that whole time I'm persuaded, but when he stopped at the well, he said a prayer unto God, he said, you send me a woman out here, and when she asked me, or I'm gonna ask her for a drink, and when I do, she's gonna ask me, if she can also get water for my Camels.

[13:43] Now folks, that may not sound like much, that's a whole lot, when you're considering about 2000, or 4000 years ago, that's a whole lot, that well, she just stand up there and lower her bucket down there, home rope and wind it back up, that well, she would have had to descend in steps, she would have had her water pods, she would have had to went down, gathered that water, and walk back up for 10 Camels, that scripture says, 10 Camels were in that caravan, of one camel drinks about 30 gallons of water at a setting, you're talking about 300 gallons of water, that that woman would have brought up out of that well, but she volunteered to do it, she volunteered folks, that was that servant trusting God, Abraham trusted his servant, because Abraham trusted God, that servant, he was loyal to his master, he was loyal unto Abraham, but he trusted God, and you know why he trusted God, because Abraham had told him the things of God, he had told him about Jehovah God, he had probably preached to the man, he had probably prophesied unto the man, he had told him about the things of old, probably told him about creation, and the whole nine yards, and that servant, he showed up, he showed up, and Rebecca comes up, she was the first one out, praise God,

[15:00] God didn't waste any time, hey that man, he followed the will of God, all the way across that desert, as I said, 500 miles across that desert, and you don't have one snippet of information between the Canaan land, and between the city of Nahor, because it was insignificant, can you imagine the prayers that man uttered, can you imagine the discussions that they had along the way, because he wasn't by himself, he was with a whole band of people, folks, it was dangerous to travel by yourself through the desert, in those days, don't believe me, we're going through the New Testament, you read about the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus spoke, it was probably even more dangerous back in Abraham's day, but, he goes, Rebecca's the first one out, he asks her, he says, can I have a drink from you, picture?

[15:50] She says, well sure, she sees his camel, they're dry, they're dusty, they're thirsty, she says, how about I get some for you camels as well, do you imagine the tingle that went down that circle's fine?

[16:02] This is the one, but he still wasn't satisfied, he still wasn't satisfied even with that, he wanted to make sure, he wanted to make sure, hey folks, how many times do we feel like we get an answer from God, and we go and we run with that answer, only to find out a day, or a week, or a month, or maybe even a year later, that wasn't God at all that spoke to us, that was our own mind, because we'd already made up our own mind, that that was the way, when we went and we prayed unto God, we said, God, I need this or I need that, God, I need you to help me with it, and we've already made up our mind, if he don't do this for me, I'm gonna do it myself!

[16:40] That servant didn't do that, he wanted to make sure, he wanted to make sure, he got in that sign, and he said, well, who's daughter are you? Who's daughter are you?

[16:52] She told him, daughter of Bethuel, who's the son of Nayor, and Bethuel's not really brought up much in the Scripture, I don't know if he had died at that point, he could have been involuted, but Laban seemed to call the shots in the home, as far as the masculine status went, but when she takes this servant to her house, and this whole band of people, and she tells them, there's not only room for you there, when they ask, there's room for you, there's room for your family, we got water, we got everything that you need at our house, and the Scripture says she went to her mother's house, and folks, that's odd, that's odd, she went to her mother's house, which tells me daddy, for whatever reason, was out of the picture, this man named Bethuel, he was out of the picture, but anyway, that's a Sunday school lesson, they go into the house, he rehearses to the whole family, they fix a big old spread, they're having a big old feast, he rehearses to the whole family, this story, folks,

[17:54] Isaac and Rebecca's story is one of the greatest love stories you'll read about, in all of Scripture, this servant had traveled 500 miles across the desert, to go and pick up a woman from her family, and take her back, they knew who Abraham was, and back when that servant was praying before Rebecca there at the well, he had mentioned Abraham, she knew who Abraham was, she knew that that was her kid, and they also knew that they had not seen him, since he had left there years, and years, and decades before, and this servant shows up, and he says, there's a man named Isaac, Abraham's son, Isaac stands to inherit everything Abraham's got, and Abraham's a man of great will, he's got all his own critters, he's got all his own money, he's got servants, he's got land, he's got it all, the only thing is, Rebecca needs to come back with me, and they knew, they'll probably never see her again, how much trust did Rebecca have to have in God, we've talked about the servant's trust, how much did Rebecca have to have, now listen, you can say she was enticed with the money, you can say that all you want to, you can say she was enticed, because he bestowed all these goods on her, so they brought her a ring, and given her bracelets, and when she finally said, or actually she never even said yes, it was pretty much insinuated, that she was fine with the matter, she was okay with the situation, and the servant, he goes out to the candles, he gets all these gifts, all this jewelry, and he brings it in, he disperses it among the family, hey, Betuel was a laugh, whatever he gave under Rebecca's mother, hey, that would have went straight to Betuel anyway, he didn't slide Betuel in the least, but he gave, he gave, this woman, Rebecca, she goes back with the servant, and the scripture goes on, and talks about Abraham, he went out to meditate, he looked at his eyes, and he saw the camels out in the distance, and folks again, this wasn't an overnight journey, this wasn't something you travel for half a day, and find yourself a Motel 6, and get up and travel the rest of the way the next day, there wasn't nothing like that going on, it would have been days and weeks of them being out there in the desert, on camels, going back home, going back to Canaan, going back to the promised land, but the servant had to display faith in God, and trust in God,

[20:24] Rebecca had to display faith in trusting God, Abraham had already displayed it, multiple times from his beginning account, Genesis 6, from his beginning account, Genesis chapter 12, all the way up to that point, what about Isaac though?

[20:38] Isaac had to show faith in the Father, what do you mean you're going to send the servant to pick out a wife for me? That would have been my word, am I not capable of picking her out myself?

[20:50] Isaac never said nothing like that, he trusted his Father, and I think he trusted his Father, because his Father trusted the Father, I think that's what he did, he trusted the Father, I think that's where that trust came from, all this, I'm saying all this to display, one man's faith, Abraham, one man's faith and one man's trust affected all these other people, it affected, even if it was remotely, even if it was indirectly, like Rebecca, Abraham trusted the servant, the servant trusted Abraham, and trusted God, and trusted God to lead him, trusted God to show him who the woman was, and to not get him across the desert, trusted God to get him back home to Isaac, he trusted all these things, Rebecca was a remote though, she was indirectly affected by it, but yet nevertheless she was affected by it, because without all that trust that started with Abraham, that servant would have never went to Nahor, and she would have never been found, and she would have never been brought back, now listen,

[21:52] God would have still made a way, God would have made a way, and God would have never promised, but that's the way that you recorded in Scripture, and it began with the trust of one man, look at Paul over in the New Testament, the Book of Acts, you see Paul, he's gone across the water, he's on a ship with a bunch of prisoners, folks that was a storm rolled up, a wind that had a name called your rockladon, now listen, it's one thing to have a storm, when that storm is so frequent and so strong, and makes itself so known that you name it, that's a whole different story, this storm, this wind blew up called your rockladon, and it started to tear apart that ship, and the soldiers that were guarding the prisoners, hey, they wanted to kill, they started throwing stuff off the boat, they started doing everything in their power to keep that boat afloat, and what did Paul say?

[22:44] Paul said, hey, there was an angel of the Lord that stood by me this night, and he said there were none of us perish if we just stay on the boat, hey folks, if I'm on a ship of any kind, and a storm rolls up, my faith is likely going to go out the window, and I'm going to start trusting on everybody around me, trusting everybody but God, you know why? Because we have been conditioned to do that, we've been conditioned to do that, y'all have heard me use an example before, we've been conditioned to be impatient, what's the Bible say?

[23:20] The Bible says, wait upon the Lord, those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, but society has conditioned us to not wait upon the Lord, and I blame the microwave oven for a lot of it, I blame fast food dry bins for a lot of it, and that's the way we've been conditioned, if we can't have it right then and right there, then we'll go somewhere else before we get it, that's not trusting in God folks, that's a bad way to get spiritually, if we ask God for something and he doesn't give it to us right then, or he says no, I've got something better on down the line, folks we have been conditioned to not trust God to provide for us, shame on us for having that attitude, but every one of us truth be known, every one of us have got that attitude, this woman here, this human not woman, as I said, her son, her only child that was promised to her by God through Elisha had died, and yet she could go, she could yell out to her husband after he died, say it as well, and she could tell the man of God serving Gehazi it as well, knowing that her son was dead, when Elisha came, first Elisha sent a servant, he sent Gehazi,

[24:42] Gehazi shows up, he lays his staff upon the boy's face, nothing happened, the Bible says nothing happened, he goes back and he tells Elisha, Elisha shows up though, Elisha prostrates himself upon the boy, he says he lays upon the boy, he lays himself there, he spreads his arms out, says he puts his mouth to his mouth, and there's nothing sexual indicated in that, he was doing what God had led him to do, he was doing what he believed that God could do, folks he was, that was symbolic of the breath of Elisha, the man that represented God, that was symbolic of his breath, or God's breath, entering into that dead boy that was there on his bed, in that chamber that they had built for him, and when that happened, it says that the boy's body started to get war, and after the boy was revived, after he was brought back to life and resurrected, hey, he got back with his mama and all was well, just like she said it would be, that was trust that was trust that she displayed through the whole thing, folks do I trust God that much?

[25:52] do you trust God that much? that's a fine question do we trust Him as much as Paul did when the ship's being tore apart? and we know that those soldiers that are on that ship with us, if we get out there in the water, that the soldiers is just going to kill us, because they're going to be tortured and killed if they let a bunch of prisoners get lived are we going to trust in God when a man of God stands and says, there was an angel stood by me this night, and he said everything was going to be fine, if you just stay on the ship, are we going to trust in God when he says, hey step out here on the water with me are we going to trust Him enough to where we can walk completely and totally to where He is at?

[26:34] praise God even if we don't even if our trust dwindles even if it dwindles He won't just leave us floating there He won't leave us floating in the water He won't leave us dead in the bed Giazzi showed up Giazzi knew something about God but Giazzi had other things on his mind too you read towards the end of the next chapter Giazzi got what was coming to him he turned around that's right his name and leprosy was healed and there they were he offered up gifts unto Elisheh Elisheh said, I don't want your money I don't want nothing you got to offer me but boy not Giazzi Elisheh went back home Giazzi trailed after Naaman he said, hey there's a couple of boys showed up he said send them with me give me some silver give me what you was trying to give Elisheh in other words he gave it to them servants showed up they helped them get it in they started he walks in there where Elisheh is at

[27:36] Elisheh says, what you doing with that that's my own words he says, what you doing with that and Elisheh tells them he says, you've done wrong I said, I'm paraphrasing all this and Elisheh told him he said the leprosy that was healed from Naaman it's going to lay on you and it did and he walked out of there just wide as snow with leprosy and the leprosy was coming to him why?

[28:04] because the man of God had tried to show him and once again the prophets of God represented God in the Old Testament they weren't God, don't you get me wrong they were not God but they represented God so for him to defy what Elisheh had said and everything that Elisheh had taught him was to defy God himself that's why he got the punishment that he did this woman here this woman here we started out tonight serving with the shunamite woman I could outright tell you I could not exercise that much trust in God I can tell you I trust God and I do and I can tell you I got faith in God and I do but do I have it like she does?

[28:48] no, I don't I don't, I couldn't tell you one person in scripture that has faith in God that I could compare my faith to the Bible says even in we well we just read this past Sunday where Jesus told Thomas he said he said you believe that blesses him basically even more some of those that have not seen and yet believe folks I haven't seen and I believe it therefore I'm more blessed than Thomas was or John or Peter or any of the other disciples that were there said Judas Iscariot he wasn't blessed at all he was blessed to have lived his years on this earth because that was years he didn't spend in hell that's the only blessing that he received Book of Acts says he went to his own place his own place is in hell I'm persuaded that I'm convinced of that people have tried to turn that into some huge theological meaning folks Judas went to hell and that's where he's at now that's where he'll be forever more this woman here she exhibited trust in God not just in the man of God but in God and we see that trust twice she says it is well knowing that her someone did but that trust was that God was not going to keep him that way

[30:10] God would not keep him that way we have trust like that in God imagine what we can do for God but trust like that we've been conditioned not to have it and it's our own fault for falling to or falling victim to that conditioning we've gotten used to things I've told you all before use myself as an example I have no doubt in my mind that God has power to heal me of my disease of diabetes and I wouldn't have to wear this pump no more the problem is I've depended on man for pushing 40 years now of my life to keep me alive man has invented needles syringes he's sucked insulin out of pigs that's what I started out on before they had synthetic insulin I used pork insulin they've sucked insulin out of pigs now they make synthetic insulin with a DNA origin I've gone from needles to a pump

[31:14] I got ways to check my sugar and I've got multiple ways to take care of myself that man has invented what does that do that slacks my faith in God and it does you all too you look in your life just consider the things in your life the things in your home the things that you do every day and think of it like that think of it as a matter of convenience this woman didn't have convenience she didn't have the conveniences that we have therefore she had more faith and more trust in God.