Elisha left Jericho and was on the road to Bethel. A bunch of young men began taunting him. Elisha knew he was in a bit of trouble because there were 42 of them and they kept getting more aggressive with their verbal attacks. Elisha also knew that even though it was 42 against 1, that he had God on his side. As the young men kept taunting and mocking him saying, "Go back you baldy! Go away you baldhead!" Elisha said to them. "In the name of the living God of Israel, curse you!" Just then two large bears came out of the woods and attacked the young men.We should always remember that if we are on God's side, He is on our's.
Meanwhile, since King Ahab had died, his son Joram had become king of Israel. The country of Moab had always given a yearly tribute of 100,000 lambs and the wool of 1000,000 rams, but since Ahab died, they stopped giving. This made Joram very upset, so he got together King Jehosaphat of Judah and the king of Edom to join him in battle with Moab. However, they ran out of water on the way there, and the land was very dry and barren. "What have you gotten us into Joram?" the king of Edom asked. "Now we are all sitting ducks for the Moabites to come and wipe us out!"
The kings decided to call on Elisha. Elisha told them that by this time tomorrow, this dry valley will be filled with pools of water, even though there will be no rain. He also told them that they will defeat the Moabites. And sure enough, the next day there were pools of water everywhere.
The Moabite army that was positioned on a hillside, looked down into the valley. The sun was shining just right on the pools of water and it made them look like pools of blood! "The three armies must have attacked and killed each other!" They said to themselves. Then they ran down into the valley to gather up the items of value that were left. But upon reaching the valley, they were surprised by the three armies and quickly defeated. Just as Elisha had prophesied.
One day a widow of one of Elisha's fellow prophets approached Elisha. "My husband has died. He was a man of God as you are, but now I am broke and a creditor has now come and threatened to take my two sons as slaves."
"Tell me, What do you have in the house?" Elisha asked.
Elisha then said, "Borrow as many empty jars as you can from your friends and neighbors. Then you and your sons go into the house, shut the door behind you and begin filling the jars from your small flask, putting the jars aside as you fill them."
So her sons gathered as many empty jars as they could from all over the neighborhood. The widow filled them until every last jar that was brought to her was filled to the brim. "Bring me another jar." The widow said. But the sons told her that there were not any more jars. And then the oil stopped flowing.
The widow excitedly told Elisha what had happened. Elisha responded. "Okay, now go and sell all the oil, pay off your debts and there will still be enough left over to support you and your sons.
Isn't God amazing! God can do more with the little bit that we have than we could have ever thought! If the sons would have only collected two jars, then the oil would have stopped flowing after the two jars were filled. Come before God with open hands and open hearts. Not open hands with hopes of getting something from God, but in a posture of surrendering what we have to a God that can do amazing things!
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