In Obedience You Will Be Prepared, And Blessings Follow

"In Obedience You Will Be Prepared, And Blessings Follow" – 2 Kings 3:16-18 “Make this valley full of ditches… Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water.” To precede is to go ahead in time: the first happened before the second. The need comes before the blessing, and for that we must be obedient, because the obedient person is a meek person and obedience precedes the blessings. The study walks through five lacks and five obediences: without water, and Elisha commands them to dig ditches that are filled with neither wind nor rain, from a source as secret as the head of the Nile, because God is not bound to secondary causes; without oil, and the widow of 2 Kings 4 sends her sons for empty vessels —empty, and not a few—, because the way to increase what we have is to use it; without healing, and Naaman arrives haughty, with gold and garments to pay for the miracle, when the only thing that precedes the miracle is to wash seven times in the Jordan; without a Messiah, and the voice of Isaiah 40 commands that the potholes be filled and the way made straight; and without harvest, because there is no sowing, and Hosea 10:12 commands us to break up the fallow ground, to sow in righteousness —moral uprightness— and to wake up. Life cries out from our deeds, not from what we say.

I. What we must learn is obedience.

A. The church is the place where we sit down to learn.

1. When people ran to the feet of Jesus, it was to hear Him; that word transformed them.

2. How much do you want to sense the Lord? You have according to how you seek.

3. If we learned more of the Scripture, we would not speak things we ought not to speak: waste no time on gossip.

4. If on the day you were to plant the tree you did not plant it, know that you have no fruit from that tree.

B. If you are an obedient person —and the obedient person is meek—, you will be prepared.

1. A good student is obedient, and that pleases the one who teaches: those ears are attentive to learn.

2. He who learns educates himself; and one must be educated upon entering a spiritual life.

3. If I learned anything when I was converted, it was to be obedient: I have nothing to argue about.

4. Life is not so complicated if we learn to be human beings living in obedience.

II. To precede is to go ahead in time.

A. To precede is to be or to hear beforehand: the first happened before the second.

1. There are many ruins and many sicknesses: that is the “before.” The need comes before the blessing.

2. If your reputation precedes you, someone spoke of you beforehand: that is going ahead.

3. If you are obedient, what will precede you are the blessings of a just man: the Lord blesses the just.

B. Before the evil day comes, what are we going to do?

1. Are we going to take it out on life, or on the one who is beside us?

2. What does the meek man do? He bends his back. To raise the back is haughtiness, and that is already rebellion.

3. The good day will come; but whether it reaches us depends on ourselves.

III. Without water: the ditches of Elisha (2 Kings 3:16-18).

A. The Moabites would be defeated, but they had to follow the prophet’s instructions.

1. Elisha, before the victory, had to make ditches: “and where is the water to come from?”

2. Elisha was a completely obedient man: God spoke, I did it, period.

3. However obedient you are, so much will you obtain of the blessings that come from God.

4. God is testing Elisha’s faith, and seeing how obedient and how capable he can be.

B. Elijah obtained water from the clouds by prayer; but of Elisha it is not known where those waters came from.

1. The source remains as secret as the head of the river Nile, which begins in several countries.

2. God is not bound to secondary causes: we do not see where the miracles come from, but they arrive.

3. That is faith: the certainty of what we do not see, of what we do not touch.

C. Elisha knows a hard day is coming, and he moves: that is an action.

1. In that obedience he is prepared, and after the war, the pain and the tragedy, the blessing arrives.

2. That provision would be like the earnest, the guarantee of victory; and even this is a light thing in the eyes of the Lord.

3. They would not only be saved from perishing, but would return triumphant: they would own the land.

4. The Lord God goes out in favor of the just, of the one who believes Him, of the one who obeys Him.

D. But we have to war: we are warriors.

1. If God chose you to be a martyr, it would be simple; in his death Paul did not suffer: he suffered in prison.

2. Paul had everything to gain, taught by wise masters; and he grew old suffering and fleeing.

3. And what do we suffer? What are you troubled about?

IV. Without oil: the widow (2 Kings 4:3-4).

A. “Tell me, what hast thou in the house?” A single empty vessel of oil: that is all there is.

1. The oil is everything: to make the cakes and to anoint the dough; without oil there is no way to bind the flour.

2. Her children’s stomachs were pressed to their backs: extreme poverty.

3. The prophet tells her to borrow empty vessels —empty, and not a few—, because the miracle is there.

4. The oil would multiply as it was poured, like the meal and oil of the widow of 1 Kings 17:14 with Elijah.

B. She was obedient and went to the prophet: there is nothing to eat, no solution, no one to ask.

1. Since you are a meek woman and tender toward God, send your sons to gather the vessels.

2. According to how they bring them, there will the multiplication be; and the blessing precedes her.

3. A simple woman, a widow, who lifted her shoulder: faith is the certainty of what is not seen.

4. The way to increase what we have is to use it: to him that hath shall be given.

V. Without healing: Naaman (2 Kings 5).

A. His evil day had come: he was full of leprosy, and for leprosy there was no healing, only death.

1. If he had not had leprosy, he would never have gone; no one would come near his rotting flesh.

2. The richest and most powerful man stopped at Elisha’s door like a beggar.

3. He brought garments and gold: he brought the means to pay for the miracle. Sacred things are not as we suppose.

B. The human being is in the evil day and wants God to work the miracle; but what precedes the miracle is obedience.

1. Let us not demand miracles of anyone: when one is obedient, one knows how to go to God.

2. When one is haughty, one does not even know the way; what destroys us is pride.

3. The just man knows how to stand, knows what he speaks, knows how to fear.

C. “Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thou shalt be clean.” The method could not be simpler.

1. Elisha did not come out to receive him, so that he would not be too satisfied with the honor paid to him.

2. “I have better rivers”: angry, full of wrath. What meek spirit did he have? None.

3. The washing was meant to be a sign of the cure and a test of his obedience.

4. The meek conquers abundantly; the haughty sinks seven feet down. God blesses the humble.

VI. Without a Messiah: prepare the way (Isaiah 40:3).

A. “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD.” Until the way was prepared, the Messiah would come.

1. The heavenly voice calls for a royal road for the Lord, who leads the exiles back to Zion.

2. Fill the potholes of your life; lower the mountains that keep you from hearing the Messiah; level the ground.

B. The people wanted a Messiah; but when He came, they crucified Him.

1. They wanted a Messiah who would come with a sword and give them triumph as a nation.

2. The last thing God is giving is triumph as a nation: with that we would devour the world.

3. A meek spirit is what the Lord seeks from our lives.

4. How many things are done knowing what the answer will be; and they must be done, even if they are not received.

VII. Without harvest: break up the fallow ground (Hosea 10:12).

A. Nothing could be gathered until the ground had been plowed.

1. Everyone in life must have a sowing; children too.

2. The problem is that there is no harvest because there is no sowing: no one to correct, no one to rebuke.

3. It is time to stop being idle: idleness is carnal, and all that is carnal is loss; the hands end up empty.

B. People live comfortably in dreams: we must wake up.

1. He who does not wake up and is not obedient will never have blessing, and will have his torment forever.

2. What should our reality be? Tears, pain, prayer: our discipline as spiritual beings.

3. To love the Word, no longer so much what you think or what you claim to know.

4. “My soul, wait thou upon the LORD; why art thou disquieted?” Have you ever taken account with your soul?

C. To reap in mercy, it is needful to sow in righteousness: moral uprightness.

1. The abandoned ground must be broken and furrowed, for it grows hard and cracked.

2. If it were moist and fertile, the seed would fall, grow, and bring forth fruit.

3. Moral uprightness is how you treat people: there is a line that is not crossed.

4. No fruit of religion can be expected if old habits are not broken and the character is not reformed.

D. The fallow ground must give way to a new life.

1. What we do not produce is what we lack; and where we are lacking there is no fruit.

2. In obedience you will be prepared, because the blessings follow after.

3. Life cries out from our deeds, not from what we say; the fruit is what would bring joy.