The Faith of the Shunammite Woman (4 views)
From:  Minister Falcon (OSMFalcon)    9/12/2002 2:00 pm  
To:  ALL    
 
  435.1  
 
2 Kings 4:8-36

Elisha was a prophet of great faith.  He came to a small town and required food.  He stopped at this Shunammite's family home every time he would travel in this direction.  As the woman discerned that this was a man of God, she persuaded her husband to build a room with sparse furnishings for Elisha so that he not only had food but lodging too.  To blessed this aged Shunammite woman, he met the desire of her heart, prophecy that she would give birth to a man-child in one year's time.  

As the son grew, he tended his father's fields when the elements caused him to ache in his head.  His father sent him home to be attended to by his mother.  But the mother was holding a son who would soon sleep the long sleep of death in her arms.  Imagine that she was profoundly distraught, but being a pious woman she held her tongue, knowing that to speak death would bring permanent death upon her son.  So as she made arrangements to leave for the city in which the prophet lived.  As she prepared, the tests came.  She was asked about her journey, and she answered with a positive statement of faith - it is well. Here she is calling those things as though they were, even though they were not.  Speaking life into her situation.

Again the test comes, she is questioned again about her circumstances and she answers with the same - it is well.  Another reply to support her faith in the God. A child of promise, a child of prayer, and given in love, yet taken away. How admirably does the prudent pious mother guard her lips under this surprising affliction! Not one peevish murmuring word comes from her. She has a strong belief that the child will be raised to life again: like a genuine daughter of Abraham's faith, as well as loins, she accounts that God is able to raise him from the dead.


She had heard of the raising of the widow's son of Sarepta, and that the spirit of Elijah rested on Elisha; and such confidence had she of God's goodness that she was very ready to believe that he who so soon took away what he had given would restore what he had now taken away. By this faith women received their dead raised to life, Hebrews 11:35. In this faith she makes no preparation for the burial of her dead child, but for its resurrection; for she lays him on the prophet's bed, expecting that he will stand her friend. O woman! great is thy faith. he that wrought it would not frustrate it.  

The prophet, by earnest prayer, obtained from God the restoring of this dead child to life again. He shut out all company, that he might not seem to glory in the power God had given him, or to use it for ostentation and to be seen of men. The performance was gradual, at first the child waxed warm, then the child sneezed, as an indication, not only of life, but liveliness.  Some have reported it as an ancient tradition that when God breathed into Adam the breath of life the first evidence of his being alive was sneezing, which gave rise to the usage of paying respect to those that sneeze.

2 Kings 4:29


Then he said to Gehazi, "Get yourself ready, and take my staff in your hand, and be on your way. If you meet anyone, do not greet him; and if anyone greets you, do not answer him; but lay my staff on the face of the child."

 
2 Kings 4:31

Now Gehazi went on ahead of them, and laid the staff on the face of the child; but there was neither voice nor hearing. Therefore he went back to meet him, and told him, saying, "The child has not awakened." 

 
2 Kings 4:33-36

33 He went in therefore, shut the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD. 
34 And he went up and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands; and he stretched himself out on the child, and the flesh of the child became warm. 
35 He returned and walked back and forth in the house, and again went up and stretched himself out on him; then the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. 

 
In 2 Kings 4:29, 31, we see that Elisha sent one of his servants to lay the staff of life across the face of the dead boy.  This is a symbol.  The staff of life is the word of God.  Sometimes God will send someone, a servant, to deliver the word of God to a dead man [walking] and it does nothing to stir him to life.  He can not receive the engrafted word because the truth is not in him.
 
So the news is hard to take, but then something extraordinary has to happen as it did in 2 Kings 4:33-36. First, Elisha shut the outside out....by closing the door to the world.  Then he prayed....he prayed fervently to the Lord.  Although it did not say that he prayed fervently, but it gives you a picture of it through the symbolism.  Elisha put his whole self upon this child - mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands, with the stretching forth of his flesh to flesh.  You see, he put his whole self into this prayer.  In that fervent prayer, he brought warmth to the child.  
 
Time pasted long enough to see that he walked back and forth in the house and then he did it again.  Prayed again with the same intensity as before.  He stretched him self out again.  That what it takes sometimes for us to reach the lost, a fervent prayer that will stretch us out until the deliverance takes place [as evidenced by the sneezing]and finally life is restored...the spirit man is awakened.
 
See the power of God, who kills and makes alive again. 
See the power of prayer; as it has the key of the clouds, so it has the key of death. 
See the power of faith; that fixed law of nature that death is a way with no returning, was replaced with this believing Shunammite woman's faith.
Your loved ones may be dead in their sin, but the power of God, the power of prayer, and the power of faith will resurrect their souls....amen.  

Pray saints for the lost in this way....the results will be restoration....~Minister Falcon

 
