Gilliland, David: Jericho 03 The Cruse Of Jericho ~ Joshua 6

Now again, we're glad to see everyone tonight, so many that have been here, been able to be here, back again, others perhaps here for the first time. We're glad to see you all. You're very welcome at the meeting, and we trust the Lord's blessing upon his word to, to each one. And the final meeting of the little series is tomorrow night, as you know, at eight o'clock again, and we'll be very glad to see you for that final occasion. If you're able to make it along, you'll be most welcome. Now, our reading tonight will be mainly from the Book of Kings, but first of all, a very short reading from Joshua and chapter six. Joshua and chapter six and verse twenty six. Joshua six and verse twenty six. And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord that riseth up and buildeth this city, Jericho. He shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it. Now over to the first book of Kings and chapter sixteen. First Kings and chapter sixteen, And we'll read at verse thirty. And Ahab the son of Amri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal and worshipped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove, and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him. In his days did Helel the Bethonite build Jericho. He laid the foundation thereof in Abaram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son, Segub, according to the word of the Lord which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun. And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. Now over a few pages to second Kings and chapter two. second Kings chapter two, and uh, perhaps we'll read at verse thirteen. Elisha took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back and stood by the bank of Jordan. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and smote the waters and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither, and Elisha went over. And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him. And they said unto him, behold now, there be with thy servants fifty strong men. Let them go, we pray thee, and seek thy master, lest peradventure the spirit of the Lord hath taken him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley. And he said, ye shall not send. And when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, send. They sent therefore fifty men, and they sought three days, but found him not. And when they came again to him, for he tarried at Jericho, he said unto them, Did I not say unto you, Go not? And the men of Jericho said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth, but the water is not, or the water is bitter, and the ground barren. And he said, bring me a new cruise and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters and cast the salt in there and said, thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters. There shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake. Now that's our reading tonight from the scriptures, we trust with God's blessing. Just a, a short time there before Christmas, I was spending a minute or two in a bookshop and browsing. I lifted down a book, and uh, I noticed that in it there was a chapter dealing in part with the kind of subject that is before us in, in these nights of ministry. And the writer was saying a little bit about spiritual victory in the Christian life, and as you know, that's what we've been thinking about, keys to victorious Christian living. I didn't buy the book, but I do remember a thing that caught my attention just in a page or two. The writer said that he felt a secret to victory was the vim principle, and I was interested just to see what he meant by that. It's maybe not the way that I would think of putting it, but it's the way that he had it. He said, if there's going to be victory, there has to be vim. I, I think vim was a cleaning agent many years ago or something like that. And I first of all thought that he meant you have to have vigor and strength. But what he was rather doing was this. He took the three letters of the word vim as an acronym, and he said for spiritual victory, the first vital ingredient is vision. Vision. We have to have a clear vision of, of where we're going and where the Lord wants us to get to. And we must have a clear vision of what we are aiming at and what the Lord's will is for a Christian. Vision. But then he said vision in itself was not enough, because you needed then to have intention. It's one thing to see where the Lord wants people to go, but it's another thing to make up your mind that I'm going to get there. So we said without resolve in the Christian life, even a Christian has an intellectual grasp and even a biblical doctrinal knowledge of this is what the Lord wants me to be, this is the ideal. He might know that and have the vision of it, but if he doesn't have the intention to say that by the grace and help of God, I will make up my mind to leave no stone unturned to arrive there. And then he said the third thing that is very important. He said, having got caught the vision and having made up one's mind with intention to reach the goal, he said the third vital i- ingredient of spiritual victory was means. You need to select the means that will enable you to fulfill your intention and to arrive at the goal that is envisaged by what you have seen. Vision backed up by intention, and intention realized by the employment of the right means. Many Christians would like and even have their mind, to a certain degree, determined to please the Lord and to do well, but they never really employ the proper means to enable them to arrive and to reach at what would be desirable. Now, in the little message, very simple little message that I want to try and convey tonight in connection with our studies in the ancient city of Jericho, you'll discover that those three matters that the good man mentioned, victory by them, those three matters will more or less sum up what I have in mind to say. Now, for those who have been here on previous nights, you will know that we have taken quite a jump. We have taken a great leap away from the days of Joshua right here to the days of the kings, about half a millennium has been passed over, and the reason that I've taken that leap is this. The city of Jericho hardly gets a mention in the intervening books. There is one mention, and if we had had another night, and I'm not complaining about that, I would like to have had time to deal with it, and we can't do that. A mention, actually an interesting mention, just give me two minutes to mention it. In the book of Judges, in about, I suppose it was about the third generation after Joshua, the children of Israel weren't behaving very well, and they began to lose their power. And one of the results of their disobedience and their weakness was that the king of Moab crossed the Jordan, and he brought them into bondage. And guess where he established his headquarters? Wily, bold old boy that he was. When he crossed the Jordan and made the people of God subservient to him, and they were paying their taxes and their tribute to him, he established his headquarters in the city of palm trees. And to me, that's very sad, because if I were preaching on it, I would be wanting to emphasize that the very first city that they gained was the first city that they lost when they started to disobey the Lord. And the very first place where they registered on the western side of the Jordan, the first place where they registered a great victory was the very place that the enemy attacked to try and take from them. And there he was with his summer palace and the summer parlor. He had a great time. He liked to cool off. It was warm in those days and warm in that area, and he had a very special, oh, uh, hefty big fellow he was and so on, and he had a, he had a wonderful system of air conditioning, and he enjoyed it to the full. And the children of Israel slaved away to finance this great big pleasure palace of, of, uh, the king of Moab. He didn't, he didn't reinvent pagan Jericho, build the walls and reinvent all the paganism, but he reinvented pleasure Jericho. And of course, we need to watch that in our lives. There's many a Christian who was a progressive individual, and he became snared by the softer pleasures of the world, not necessarily the sinful pleasures of the world, but by the softer pleasures of the world and the selfishness and unease. That's what Moab represents, indolence and ease. Moab had been at ease from his youth, and anyhow, all of that was greatly reversed when a left-handed man, they they they they tolerated that pleasure way of going for eighteen years. That's always amazing to me. When Christians begin to lose ground and take a soft approach to life, it's amazing how much time can be lost lying down. Tolerated that for eighteen years, held in bondage to the pleasure-loving regime of Moab. I, I would maybe just say, I'm gonna have to watch I don't end up preaching on it more than I should. Again, I would say to younger believers here, you watch, you watch that having been delivered from, from the sins of this world in its more grievous form, that you don't find yourself crippled by the pleasures of the world. You know, that is bringing many. In fact, I heard a brother, I'll tell you this, it'll take me just a minute, just a brother spoke at a conference. I didn't say it. I would have sympathy with it, but I didn't say it. He said it. I'm going to tell you exactly what he said, and then you analyze it for yourself. Don't hold me accountable. I'll not tell you his name. It's way up the country. I don't think any of you were there, maybe. He was speaking a word on godliness and how we should develop godliness in our lives, and what produces godliness and what godliness produces. And in the midst of his comment, he said that he was aware there were many Christians that now spent quite a bit of time at cinemas watching movies and so on. I'm not aware of that. He said that. And, uh, he was advising against that. And he said this. He said when he was just saved, and he's not a, not an old fossil, an old Victorian preacher or anything. He's a young chap just about my own age, living in the same decade. So that gives you an idea of his, of his youth. He said, he said when he got saved, the preachers used to say that Christians didn't go to the cinema. And he says, I'm still inclined to think that that's true. Christians don't go to the cinema. And he hesitated. And he said, if you're constantly going, he said, you're only showing who you are and where you stand. What I'm saying is this, there was a day when they conquered Jericho, and they couldn't tolerate Jericho. They weren't three or four days across the Jordan until Jerry was conquered. Three generations later, they could tolerate Jericho for eighteen years. We are beginning to tolerate pleasures in our lives that used to be judged by the word of God, and we used to be considered unsuitable for Christians who wanted to make progress. Well, maybe that's it. When the old fella had his summer parlor at Jericho, they weren't making progress. They were losing ground. They were losing land, they were losing life, they were losing liberty, they were losing time. But that's just Jericho. Dear brethren, younger brethren, older brethren, you watch, you watch. It's a seriously bad sign when Christians begin to attend places and palaces of worldly entertainment. It's sending out a signal that there's not enough in Christ to satisfy, and we need some of these secular supplements. But anyway, I can't stay with that. That's the only major reference to Jericho in the intervening books. And now we have come away, I say, this five hundred years or so, or maybe a little bit more, and into the Book of Kings. And we have these two references in the First Book of Kings, chapter sixteen, and then this further reference in the Second Book of Kings, chapter two, Now, they'll be easily remembered because in First Kings chapter sixteen, and I'll briefly make comment upon it. It's, it's the curse of Jericho. The curse of Jericho. In Second Kings chapter two, um and I'll say a little bit more about it, it's the cruise of Jericho. In the days of Elijah, Jericho suffered the fulfillment, the execution of a curse. But in the days of Elisha, those were days of grace. He took a cruise, and he brought healing and blessing to that particular city. Now, they were dark days. That's why I read, I read the words of, uh, of Joshua chapter six. When the city was demolished and the walls fell, Joshua, under the hand of God, pronounced a curse, and he said, the man, the man that builds this city, he said, it'll cost him his family. His firstborn son and his youngest son will die. One will die at the start of the work, the other will die at the completion of the work, and it was a curse of death that rested upon the man that would rebuild the fortifications of Jericho. Now just, you would nearly gather this from what I have said. Jericho was occupied after it had been destroyed and all that, of course, it was, it was revamped, and it was reoccupied, occupied for many years, but the walls were never built. And the curse of God wasn't upon living on the site of Jericho, and the curse of God wasn't upon rebuilding a house in Jericho, but God's curse was upon the man that would rebuild the walls of Jericho. Those walls were symbolic of resistance and rebellion. And God said, the man that will reestablish rebellion and will build up again what I in my judgment have demolished, he says, that man will suffer the curse. But you say, well, sure, ah, that's a half a millennium ago, that's five hundred years ago. The old fella that said that curse, he's dead and gone. We'll chance it. We'll chance it. That's a hoary old tale. That's a bit of old Bible thumping. That's a bit of old fashioned scaremongering, that the man who builds the fortifications will pay the penalty of his two sons. We chance it. That kind of a threat has long since gathered mildew and is out of date, and chance it he did. And one century had passed, and two centuries had passed, and three centuries had passed, and four had passed, and five had passed, and the half of the sixth one had passed, and this gentleman called Heel, he put his trowel out, and he said, we'll have a go at it. When he laid the foundation, his firstborn boy died. When he hung up the gates, his youngest boy died, and they're both male. And this, this sad case, this bold man, he discovered that God's word is always fulfilled. And even though centuries pass, and even though circumstances change, and even though culture becomes climatized and diluted. I, I took the time to read, and I'm not going to speak in detail about them. I took the time to read the two or three verses that just precede this rebuilding of the fortifications, because the verse that tells us about the rebuilding, it says, in his days did Hiel the Bethelite rebuild Jericho. Whose days? Ahab. Ahab was a fellow, had no time for the word of God. Absolutely no time. He walked in the ways of Jeroboam. He married, he married a very nicely decorated lady called Jezebel. Fine lady she was. He introduced the worship of Baal, and everything that God prohibited, he just flouted with a brazen effrontery. In his walk, in his wife, in his worship, he just turned the word of God upside down. And as the most influential person in the land of Israel in those days, he made it absolutely clear that I don't care topples about the word of God. And he seemed to get away with it for a while. And in his death, because the king could do it, this fellow, this fellow Hiel said, oh well, he said, sure, nobody worries about the Bible now. Not at all. He said the king doesn't worry about it, no matter his public life, his personal life, his religious life. He said the king doesn't worry anything about it. Why should I worry about it? He said, let's take the chance. He said, I would like to build this city and establish it well and make a name for myself. Take the chance he did, and he discovered that in a day when the word of God seemed to count for nothing, and everybody could do it and get away with it, God's word still stood firm. And the ancient curse, dear Christians, let us remember, it's a solemn thing because that's exactly the culture that we live in. It amazes me how the word of God is the, uh, well, it doesn't amaze me at all. I shouldn't say amaze me. It grieves me. And even, even our local paper has been covered these last days. And you would think that the Apostle Paul had never put pen to paper. And they have poured content, poured content on what is written in the Bible, and they have honored tradition and culture against the scripture. We live in a day, dear fellow Christian, politically, socially, morally, ecclesiastically, we live in a day when the word of God out there counts for nothing. But I trust that in here we will stand in awe of this book, because you never break the Bible. You never break the Bible with impunity. Never. Sinner or saint, we never disregard God's words. In fact, I was saying somewhere in another meeting, in a different connection, speaking about society that has abandoned the word of God and family life and marriage and all these things. You know the way it's going. I'm not going into those details just now, and they break God's laws, and then they can see that society begins to fragment and disintegrate and lies like a heap of debris at their feet, and they cry and despair, and they don't know what to do. They've abandoned God's word, and then they don't like the consequences. And I was saying this, people, it takes them a long time to learn, and maybe even ourselves too at times, but it takes governments and societies a long time to learn that we don't break God's laws. God's laws will break us if they are disregarded. That's what men are discovering. That's what, would you say, who was this fellow? Was this fellow some pagan, some ignoramus that came away up from, from the jungle somewhere and never knew anything about the Bible and never knew anything about God, and he was just some poor creature, and he, i- i- in his ignorance, he just went ahead and did this and didn't even know that he was doing it. I tell you, I tell you, the Bible goes out of its way to make sure that that wasn't the case. It says the man's name was Heel. And I'll not take time to explain that. God's in his very name, he had a knowledge of God. Heel the Bethlehemite. That makes it to me very st- You can hardly believe that a man from Bethel, a man from Bethel, with such a background and with such a holy heritage of reverence, his forefather Jacob said, this is a dreadful place, this is the house of God. And here's a man from Bethel has so abandoned reverence that with bold effrontery he actually goes and he tries to build Jericho. When he had it built, he succeeded in building it, of course. When he had it built, it became a monument to his rebellion. But there were two other pieces of construction there. If you had gone outside the city, there were two graves. And on one of the graves was the name of his firstborn, and on the second grave was the name of his youngest. And the city became a monument to his rebellion, but sadly the cemetery became a monument to the government of God that always fulfills his word, even though culture abandons it, and even though centuries have rolled by. Now that's very serious and very solemn. And dear Christians, don't feel that I'm overemphasizing it, because I feel that even as assemblies, as Bethalites, we are living in a day when there's not the reverence for the word of God. And it shows itself in many ways, in our deportment, and in many of the ways we behave, and many of the associations we have. I needn't go on at length. It shows our lack of reverence. You see, four, five hundred years ago, there was a group of people, and they were rather despised, and they got the name of Quakers. And I'm not advertising Quakerism. George Fox taught some very doubtful things, but he had commendable qualities as well. Do you know why they were called Quaker? Because people noticed that they trembled at the word of God. When God's word was read and spoken, they shook. We shake, we shake our heads. I- I- I- I'm not happy about it. I'm not happy that so much ministry is treated with contempt. And people just shake their head and just strut and storm about, dear people, let us get back and carry within the shrine of our souls a reverence for the word of God. And half the sloppiness would be out the door within a day. And the casual carelessness and the cultural accommodation and all this dilution of testimony that is becoming so grievous. And it's not just a matter, dear Christians, listen, it's not just a matter of making one or two cranks unhappy. What I tell you, you know what it's doing? It's leaving us absolutely powerless. Powerless. And we're puffing, and we're preaching, and we're praying. And what we need to do is to get down before God and acknowledge that we have missed the way, and we have lost the sense of his fear. You parents, can I ask, I'm not a parent, how are you encouraging your children in the fear of the Lord? Overseers, preachers, what sense of the fear of God do we carry with us? That was the prophesy to get that onto the stage. There strode an old fella, well, I don't know what age he was, but he said, listen, people, God says there'll be no Jew. According to his word, there'll be no Jew or rain. And they must have laughed him and said, do you hear that old phooey talking about God's word? There'll be no Jew or rain. What are you talking about, old fool? Who cares about the word of God here? We have done everything that breaks the Bible, and there's nobody cares a thing about it. Well, they discovered after three years that Elijah's word was true and God's word was true, and the barrenness proved it, and so on. The judgment of God in the curse of Jericho and the disregard of, I mean, there's an awful things being re-erected in our world. This was pagan Jericho being revived. And given governmental, given governmental permission and authority and acquiescence. You see, I don't want to speak ill of the government because we subscribe to them and submit to them. But dear Christians, the government of this country is doing its best to revive paganism. And it won't be long until you can say you're anything, anything, any breed, creed, or class, but if you dare say you're Christian, you'll have had it. They'll tolerate any form of paganism or permissiveness, but what honors Christ and honors the Bible, that's the days, that's the days in which the walls of Jericho were rebuilt, but the man who took the chance and finished the project paid the penalty, sadly, in his own family. I better leave that. The curse of Jericho. I'm interested in the crews of Jericho, because when you turn a few pages, the good man Elijah who preached the word of God, has gone back to heaven. And Elisha, his successor, takes up his cloak and comes back across the Jordan. You, I don't need to remind an audience like this, for the greater part anyway, that Elijah, before he went to heaven, moved out of the land. They didn't want the man. He moved out of the land, and God took him to heaven from the eastern side of Jordan. But God didn't abandon the land because Elijah had a man that would carry on the ministry, and Elisha took up the mantle and came back across the same river. And when he re-entered, when Elisha re-entered the land, the first city that he touched was Jericho. That's just like the nation. When they crossed the Jordan and came into the land, their first encounter was Jericho, and it's the very first encounter that Elisha has. Now, one of the things that interests me is this, that in Jericho at this stage, there was a, there was a sizable group of prophets. They're called the sons of the prophets, or students of the prophets, or whatever term you like to, a school of the prophets. And they met Elisha. And they, in fact, the Bible tells us that when Elisha came, these men went out and they bowed down to him. And they showed him the utmost of respect, and they asked him if they could have permission to go and look for Elijah. And he told them not to bother their head, for Elijah had gone to heaven, but they insisted, and they did go and look for three days and came back and didn't find him. They weren't... they weren't the brightest of men. No. They weren't the most spiritual of men. They... well, they had weaknesses, but it amazes me that there were at least fifty of them, and more than fifty, in Jericho. You see what has happened? What has happened? That in this wretched city that had been built in rebellion in the days just before Elijah, that now you have got a group of at least fifty men who are the sons of the prophets, and they have great respect for Elisha. I think, I think there's a great encouragement in that. You know, old Elijah, there was once or twice in his life that he thought he was the only one left. And he preached, and he prayed, and he plugged away, as we say. And there were times there was very little to show. And it seemed as if his whole ministry was fruitless. But do you see when he went to heaven, and Elisha came to Jericho. He found at least fifty men who were not perfect, I say, and weren't the most spiritual, but at least they had great respect both for Elijah and for Elisha. Dear brethren, can I say this? Don't be giving up. And even though your ministry might not seem to produce very much at the time, when you're going to, gone to heaven, if you serve the Lord with quietness and humility of mind and keep at it, you never know what you leave behind. Fifty men and other cities, Bethel and so on, and other groups of prophets, but fifty men of the sons of the prophets, a little, a little island of fidelity in an ocean of iniquity. You know what's amazing? It's amazing that we're there. People say to me sometimes, isn't it a pity that assemblies are not in a better condition? Aye, well, sure it is. I'll mention that in a minute. Dear brethren, we can talk about that, and we feel that. It's a pity they're not in a better condition. That's true. But I want to say just now at a quarter to nine, it's a mercy they're in existence at all. In a world where there is so much anti-God and anti-Christ dotted even right across this province, God has groups of his people that are just the very antithesis of all that is around them, and they love the Savior and seek their best with imperfections, seek to honor the word of God. Now, I'll just leave that little section where they, um, they went to seek for Elijah and so on. When Eli- when Elisha comes to Jericho, the men of Jericho, of course, have a problem. They have a problem, and they bring this problem to Elisha, and they express it, they express it very succinctly. It says, the men of the city, pro- probably, I, I would think that expression, the men of the city, in second Kings two and verse nineteen probably refers to the elders of the city, but even so. The men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth, but the water is not, and the ground is barren. There's something doesn't seem to match. Now, as far as, as far as the position of the city's concerned, it's beautiful. The situation is pleasant. As I've already said, it's called in parts of the Bible the city of palm trees. The city of Jericho was just like a little oasis, a few miles north of the Dead Sea, an oasis in a very, very barren landscape. And that's what these men are saying here to Elisha. They said, my lord, the city is, it's, it's in a great position. But some distance outside of the city, and whatever had happened, the water in this spring had turned bad or turned bitter. And as it flowed down into the city and the people drank it, possibility is it appears, it's an unusual word when it says is barren and, uh, bitter, abad, and barren. The probability is, if they drank the water, the good ladies had miscarriages and children weren't born. And if they used the water to irrigate plants or crops or trees, the fruit didn't reach full perfection and just dropped off. It's not altogether that there was no growth, but it never got to its full perfection. And they said, we have a lovely place here. It couldn't be better. But there's a stream of bitterness that is producing an awful barrenness. The position was good, but the condition gave great concern. You know, I'm, I'm concerned about that. And I want to apply that just in the meeting tonight. I want to apply that to assembly life. We just, we leave Ballymagaric for a minute. Just forget all about Ballymagaric. We'll think about some assembly a good bit from here. And the assembly position is good. In fact, I'll tell you, I'll be honest with you, and I can't go out to prove this, but I- I'll be honest with you. I don't believe that the assembly position can be improved on. And that'll take some of you by surprise. And I don't want to hurt anyone here, not at all. If the Lord has saved you by his grace, dear Christian friend, you're just as much bound for glory and covered by the blood of Christ and indwelled by the Holy Spirit as anyone that comes to Ballymagary Gospel Hall. I don't want to hurt anyone, but let me say this. I don't believe that the denominational position can be found supported in the Bible. Not one of them. But I do believe that the assembly position, believers gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus, gathered in scriptural simplicity, expressing the priesthood of all believers, acknowledging the presidency of the Holy Spirit, free from clerisy and all of those other additions, I believe that the assembly position is supported by the word of God, and you can better it, but I don't like sometimes the position's good, but the condition's bad. I have been in assemblies, and again, I'm not talking about here, and it was good. I couldn't have pointed, I couldn't have pointed and said, now, do you see those, do you see that assembly up there? They have brought in things that the scripture doesn't support, and they have turned away from the Bible, and they have abandoned the assembly position. I couldn't have said that the position was good, but I wasn't too long about until I discovered there was a stream of bitterness, and it was producing barrenness. You see, always keep in your mind, dear Christian, because it's an important thing. The distinction that I've been trying to make there for the sake of my application, there's a great difference between the assembly position and the assembly condition. In fact, I have known dear believers sincere enough, and because they got the two mixed up, they left the assembly. They left the position because the condition wasn't good. And that's sad. You see what these men did? They brought the problem to Elisha, and they said, Lord, can you help us with this? He said, they said, we have a problem. We're barren. We're in a beautiful place here. Couldn't be better, couldn't be nicer, couldn't be more pleasing. Everything's just, everything's just perfect, but there's this bitterness and there's this barrenness. Well, we'll come to Balamagyarik. We're in a lovely place here. I'm not just talking about the whole, the hall. That's grand. We have many nice gospel halls, and this is a very commendable one. I'm not even taking a sideswipe with that. A lovely position. Things couldn't be better. We're as comfortable as... but is there bitterness? Because, let me say this to you, Christian. If we carry in our hearts bitterness, it will produce barrenness, and there'll be no way around it. And the place can be ever so nice, and everything can be so inviting, and you would say, quit your talking, that's an ideal place, that's an ideal situation for the blessing of the Lord, but it doesn't come because the bitterness that's flowing through the place by this stream that has been poisoned is producing this infertility that I've spoken about. You know, I will say this to all of us tonight. When you go on a little bit in Christian life, you'll, you'll, you'll not be up around too long till you bump into somebody. And you'll get a nap or two, and maybe a fair hefty nap. And things will happen. And we've all, we've all had that. I'll tell you this, it's very easy to become bitter. And to live in the past. And to keep logging up the ledger of your gripes and your grievances, and to allow the grudges of the past to harbor and to fester in your soul. Now, I'm not talking, you know that I'm not from what I've said already, I'm not talking about things slipping and the whole thing just all lovey dovey and then in goes, nothing matters, and everything's just... I'm not speaking about that at all. I'm talking, dear Christians, about the great danger of, of an assembly in a good position, a biblical position, never reaching its full potential, because bitterness is flowing through the very middle of the place. That's what happened here with this stream. The water was bitter, and the ground was barren. You know, the Apostle Paul says, let all bitterness and wrath and malice, let it be put away from you, and so on. I don't think I'll say anything more about that. Well, they brought the problem to the right person. It's good to take it to the Lord. They address Elisha as the Lord. He says, um, he says, bring me a new cruz, and he says, put salt in it. He didn't ask for anything sophisticated. He didn't tell them to go away up into, away up into Mount Lebanon and to cut down chunks of cedar. No, he says, get me, get me a cruz, so long as it's clean. It's clean. I suppose you know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't fault me if I said when problems are solved, needs to be clean. Nothing, no old, forgive this expression, no old dirt attaching to the thing, just clean. And salt, well, sure they weren't, they weren't a stone's throw from the Dead Sea, the Salt Sea, so there was no trouble getting salt. He says it's handy. He says the solution, the solution to your problem, gentlemen, he says it's not a solution that you find in Greece. It's not a solution that comes with spices from the far distant land of Persia. He said, it's at your elbow, it's within your hand. Take an ordinary vessel, so long as it's new and clean. He says, we're going to make a new start here. We're going to make a new start. And he says, get salt in its wholesome, in its wholesome quality, and put it into the vessel. You know, let me say this, dear Christians. Most of our problems have the solution fairly handy. And what will help the problem isn't something two thousand miles away on the other side of the earth. It's something close and available if we are prepared to use it. You know, in Turn a Page or two. there was a lady in a problem, one of the, the widows of the prophets, and you remember the debt and so on, and the likes of sister, he says, tell me, lady, what have you got in the house? She says, I had, she says, I have nothing in the house, mister. She says, it's a novel fix we're in. She says, I have nothing in the house, only a pot of what? He says, the very thing. She had it in the house. The solution to her problem was right inside the four walls of her own house, and the solution to this problem was as close, as close as a new cruise to be filled with salt. Maybe a wee bit of salt, just getting things purified, the pure s- salt of the word of God. In fact, let me say this. It only take a minute, and I want to get stopped here. Elisha is the great man for additives. He's always putting things in. There are three, there are three additive miracles of Elisha. You remember this one, where he put in the salt into the stream. And you remember over a page or two, the boys, the sons of the prophets were there one day for their lunch, and there'd a great bowl of stew on, and one of the boys had been out and gathered some wild gourds, and he had cut them into the pot, and when they started to ladle out the stew, the cry went up from around the table, oh, it's poison! And Elijah says, well, those boys, you better fish out those gourds. No, he says, get meal. Get meal. Put the meal in. And when they put the meal in, they had a real good tuck in. You remember over another page or so, there was a fella out you cutting down trees, and the head flew off his axe, and he lost his head, the edge. Went down into the water. Elijah says, tell you what, put, put a branch in. You see, in the first case, they'd lost their sweetness. That's the story that I'm talking about. Lost their sweetness. The water had become bitter, and the ground had become barren. I want to ask us all here now tonight, is there any Christian here, and you have really lost your sweetness? Because that can be lost. The second story, they lost their sustenance because the stew in the pot became poison and they couldn't eat it. In the third story, the fellow that was cutting with the axe and the head fell off, flew off into the water, he lost his sharpness. You do a lot of hammering and wailing and whacking with a headless axe. You know, many of us have lost our sweetness, and many of us have lost our food, and many of us have lost our edge. We haven't the cutting edge that once we had. Elisha says, bring in the salt, bring in the meal, bring in the branch, and I can't do it at this time, but I think I could, without too much trouble, let you see that each one of those is a beautiful picture of Christ. Christ in his birth, his holy humanity like this pitcher with the salt in it. Christ in his life as the meal, Christ in his death as the branch thrown down into the torrent of Jordan. Dear believers, let me say this as I almost close the meeting tonight in McGarrick. If we want to get the bitterness and the barrenness cured, let us bring Christ as the solution. There was, there was a bit of a problem at a place called Colossae. Aye, a bit of poison, a bit of poison in the stew, uh, in the assembly at Colossae, or at least it was threatened. What did the Apostle Paul do? He brought in Christ. A bit of poison and a bit of bitterness and envy and strife and jealousy and divisions and bickerings and clans in Corinth. What did Paul do? He brought in Christ. A bit of the loss of power and grace, even in the Philippian assembly. Strife and vainglory, disputings and murmurings in chapter two. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory. A few verses down, do all things without murmurings and disputings. And in between those two verses, he speaks about Christ, who was in the form of God and became obedient unto death, even the death of a slave. Dear Christians, he is the great answer to all of these problems, and he's right there, and he's right available, but the problem is, are we prepared to use it? What they needed as the solution was just right there within their reach. Now, as I close, the condition, the concern of the elder, the beauty of the place was contradicted by the barrenness and by the bitterness. The container that was used, a clean container full of pungent salt. Let me just say a quick word about the casting in of the salt. If you're going to get the cure, where do you put it? Well, it tells us here, it tells us that he went forth onto the spring of the waters and cast the salt in there and said, thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters. There shall not from thence any more be death or barren land. So the waters were healed. He went, he went about two miles outside the city, right up to the source, the spring that fed the stream. And when he had climbed up into the hills and got the cause of the problem, that's where he poured in the salt. It's not nice. Sometimes, sometimes, to make a new start, the new cruise, to make a new start, sometimes you have to do a bit of backtracking and just get back to the very source where the thing went wrong and where the bitterness all commenced. And once you get to the source and apply the salt at the, like, you know, I don't need to tell people here, but no, no point in actually putting the, putting the salt in in Jericho. If, if you put a, a fourteen foot load of, a fourteen ton load of salt in a Jericho, it was no good when the poison was still coming from up the hill. No, generally speaking now, and I know you could maybe quote exceptions and so on, generally speaking, dear brothers and sisters, problems down the stream can only be solved by going back to their source. And that's not easy, and that require- I'm sure those boys didn't like maybe going away up the hills with Elisha. He took them right to the very starting, applied the remedy there, and the Lord said, I have healed the waters of this city, and it became blessed. And instead of bitterness, there was sweetness, and instead of barrenness, there was fruitfulness. And the city of palm trees, now by the grace of Elisha, the city of palm trees lived up to its name, and it became a beautiful place, and it became a bountiful community, just because the cure had been applied. Now, I could, I could apply that a lot, and I don't want to go too far, but you know, dear believers, that wee things can get in, and we're all responsible, like, where I'm not throwing stones at anybody because there'd be a bitter streak in Gillyland too. And I could hold a grudge just as handy as anybody. And a wee bit of starch in me. Dear Christian, into your conscience tonight, rub the salt, and it might smelt, but thank God it'll eventually cleanse and soothe, and things will be better everywhere, and better for everybody, for the glory of. The curse of Jericho, God's government, but the cruise of Jericho and the cure of Jericho in God's marvelous grace. I trust the Lord will bless his word. Shall we pray? Our Father, thou knowest these matters that we have mentioned again. Thou hast observed and heard every word that has been spoken. We pray that thou will sift through in the memories of thy people any chaff and material that is unprofitable, and grant that there might be incorporated the wheat of thy word into the very fiber and fabric of our lives. We thank thee for assembly fellowship. We can say that the situation is beautiful, and it cannot be improved. We are very grateful for fellowship with thee and fellowship with thy people and public testimony, but we do confess that sometimes these situations can develop. We pray that if we have contributed to them, that thou will help us to be humble and to be honest before thee, so that again we might see the streams of blessing flow and the land covered with fruit for the glory of God. Help us in these matters. We acknowledge our mistakes and seek for grace to do better. As we thank thee for thy word, we thank thee for thy grace. How, how grateful we are that thou art a God of pardon. Thou canst revive and restore and refresh. We place ourselves before thee and ask for parting blessing as we go away from Ballymagary tonight and commend thy people and the assembly here to thee in the Lord Jesus' precious name. Amen. Just a verse there where we're transgressing. Six hundred and sixty eighth, six sixty eighth. O Lamb of God, still keep me near to thy side. 'Tis only there in safety and peace I can. I think we'll make do with, uh, with that, with that first verse. Verse one only of six hundred and sixty eight, and we might stand to sing.