Family life is essential for spiritual vitality, as demonstrated by the Shunammite woman's faith and Elisha's miracle in 2 Kings 4. The sermon highlights the importance of a father's active involvement, contrasting the indifferent father in the story with the believing mother who took initiative. True family life requires Christ at its center, with parents prioritizing their children and spouse over work and material gain. The message concludes by emphasizing that genuine spiritual life and the ability to see 'dead things raised' comes from fully investing oneself in God and family, mirroring Christ's selfless sacrifice.
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Brother Phelan and myself and Lou Clarkson and some others have been together for a long time and we really enjoy each other. You know, but you have to be careful. I just heard that Brother Phelan is going to be over at his house for some meetings. My wife and I were lined up, we're lined up to go to the conference in February, and we're supposed to stay at Eddie's house. After Salem has been there with Eddie, anybody else know any place else that we could stay in Greensboro for a couple of days?
One thing I'm glad of at this conference, I'll learn how to pronounce. Kelly R. Joe Blue. You know, I knew Priscilla. I knew her parents. My wife and I ministered to the work in France to the Hoyes for a number of years. This is back thirty-eight, maybe years ago. Priscilla, by the way, was in arms then. But it's really nice to have learned how to pronounce a name. It's terrific. One other thing I wanted to say about, you know, you've heard a lot about the collection here, the little box over there for the preachers, for those that are ministering.
Don't worry too much about it. They live by faith, and the Lord take care of it. Anyway, I don't suppose you're worried very much about it. Maybe... Maybe you heard the little story about the elderly Bella that had very serious heart trouble. And his folks learned that he had inherited a million dollars. So they were really frightened about this. They said, the shock will be too much for him. We'll be telling him he's inherited a million dollars. What should we do?
So they went to the preacher. And they said to the preacher, Ken. Do you suppose that you can talk to Joe and kind of break the news easy to him that he's inherited a million dollars so he doesn't die of a heart attack? So the preacher went to him and he says, Joe, what would you do if you inherited a million dollars? Well, I give half of it to the church. The preacher had the heart attack. Shall we turn to Second Kings, Second Kings chapter four. Verse seventeen.
And the woman conceived and bare a son at that season, and Elisha had said unto her according to the time of life. And when the child was grown, it fell on a day that he went out to his father to the reapers. And he said unto 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. And she went up and laid him on the bed as a man of God, and shut the door upon him, and went out. And she called unto her husband and said, Send me, I pray thee, one of the young men, and one of the asses that I may run to the man of God and come again.
And he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to? him today. It is neither new moon nor Sabbath, and she said, It shall be well. Then she saddled a nest, and said to her servant, Drive and go forward, slack not thy riding for me, except I bid thee. So she went and came unto the man of God to Mount Carmel, and it came to pass when the man of God saw her afar off that he said to Gehazi, his servant, Behold, yonder is Ashunamanite. Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well. And when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet, but Jehazi came nearer to thrust her away.
And the man of God said, Let her alone, for her soul is next within her, and the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me. Then she said, Did I desire my soul? A son of my Lord, did I not say, Do not deceive me? Then he said to Gahez, I gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy way. If I meet any man, salute him not, and if any, salute thee, answer him not again, and lay my staff upon the face of the child. And the mother of the child said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And he arose and followed her. And Gehazi passed on before them and laid the staff upon the face of the child, but there was neither voice nor hearing, wherefore he went again to meet him and told him, saying, The child is not awake.
And when Elisha was coming to the house, behold, the child was dead and laid upon his bed. He went in, therefore, and set the door upon them, twain, and prayed unto the Lord. And he went up and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands. and he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm. Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro, and went up, and stretched himself upon him, and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. Then he called Gehazi, and said, Call this Shunamanite. So he called her, and when she was come in unto him, he said, Take up thy son. Then she went in, and fell to his seat, and bowed herself to the ground, and took up her son, and went out.
Look particularly at verse twenty-six. Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well. But I want to talk about this morning is family life. By the way, While I'm here, let me just divert one second. I'd like to, on behalf of the conveners of the National Workers and Elders Conference up in Toronto, in October, I'd like to invite all the elders and workers to this.
And this is going to be one of the subjects that's taken up a little bit about this, which would concern the workers. We'd like to have everybody come that can, elders and workers. Eddie, try and make sure. Okay. But I'm interested in the family life. There can't be any assembly life, that life-giving as you've seen here, unless you have the basic family life. There can't be any public testimony in the community unless there's that family life. It must be there. We had a real shock. I'm sure the shock way he's got around the country with Anita Bryant.
getting a divorce. You know, the divorce rates, they tell me, I'm moving up now to about three out of five minutes, ending divorce. Well, this was a terrible shock to us. We carry Anita's books. I've been very fond of her. I feel she's a genuinely born again person. I've heard her testimony, and she has always impressed me as being a very wonderful person. So we got the news that they were divorced. Well, we carry one of her books on our bookshelves, in our bookstore, and we have recommended it well. It has to do with the home, the home life.
And, of course, in it, she mentions how so many people write to her and come to her to see how she and Bob can have such a wonderful home life. So I was talking to Ricky. I said to Ricky, what are we going to do about her book on home? It's a wonderful book. But isn't it a change? That it now bears, it just spoils. Because of her actions. The whole life is gone. Well, Ricky said, well, we could say, do as she says, not as she does. Ricky's a pretty good thinker. Anyway, notice here you have the whole family.
Verse twenty-six. Is it well with thee? There's the mother. Is it well with thy husband? There's the father. Is it well with the child? And there's the children. Now that's the family. And here was a man that was interested. And I want you to think of the Lord Jesus this morning as being interested in that home of yours. He's interested in the father. He's interested in the mother. And he's interested in the child. Now the characters in this little story that we have just read take in... the dead child, sunstroke, or maybe forgot his hat or what. Children are dead in trespasses and in sin.
And they need to have life. They need to be born again. And there has to be family life between the father and the mother for this to take place. And we'll talk a little bit about that. In this story, there's the indifferent father. He had no time for the needs of his son. You'll notice there in verse nineteen, he said to a lad, one of the servants, carry him to his mother. Take him to his mother. No time for the needs of a son. Then you have the believing mother. And thank God for believing mother. She believed that God gave birth and that God was able to give rebirth.
New birth. Then you had the formal servant, and I wish I had a lot of time to talk about him, but an interesting character to show us that is the wrong side of servitude. But he was as cold and stiff as the staff that he carried, a legalist. Then you have the man of God, came down from the heights to a place of death and brought life. and you see Christ in it, come from the height of glory down to place of death, to this earth, and brought life to us. Now, in verse eighteen and nineteen, the child comes to his father, and he said, My head, my head.
And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. Now, I'd like to talk a little bit about fathers this morning. You know, it takes effort. to have a happy family. And it ought to start with the father. Now, I know fathers ought to be good providers. We have a lot about that in scriptures, and they have to be dealt with sometimes by the elders. I remember old brother Reed, some of you may remember him. He was really reprimanding a brother because he was lazy and wouldn't work enough for his family. And the brother said, well, brother Reed. I don't think you're exactly scriptural. Remember it says in the scriptures that the Lord says, Consider the lilies.
They toil not, neither do they spin. Brother Reed looked at him and he says, But brother, you ain't no lily. You know, a couple of years ago, we had a little, I led a little workshop on the subject of the church. And in it we came to discipline. And we came about this subject, about being lazy. And one brother said, you know, we've got a real problem in our assembly. We've got one fellow that just won't work. And he sits home and his wife goes out and works and supports him and the children.
What do you think we ought to do about it? How can we handle it? One brother piped up and he said, well, I think we ought to find out how he got it arranged. But you know, that's one side of the story. The other extreme now is like this fellow that we just read about. He's out in the harvest. And you know at the harvest time is when the farmer makes the money. And what is he doing? He's out there making money. And he doesn't have any time for his child. He doesn't have any time for his family. He's got to make money. Got to work overtime. So he just turns it over to a service. Now...
It takes effort to raise children. And it takes that personal effort from a father. It has to start with, or it has to start with a father, because he is the head of the whole. Now there was a communication problem here between him and his son. He didn't understand his son. He didn't understand what was wrong with his son. And there sometimes is a real communication with our children. Here was a child in trouble. And what does the father do? Turns them over to us there. Now, sometimes, beloved, our children are in trouble, and what do we do? We turn them over to the school teachers to teach them about their problems.
We turn them over to the television to teach them and to counsel with them. Or we turn them over to the street element, his peers at school. from which he might not get very good information. You know what this father said? Take him to the mother. You see, he was laying everything on the mother. Fathers, don't get so busy making money that you can't understand the needs of your children. That's where it's got to start. Actually, I was thinking of a number of fathers in Scripture.
I just want to mention a couple. Eli, for example, he had that problem back in first Samuel. Eli, if you read it carefully, he heard about his son's problems when they were old, when they were grown. It should have started when they were this big. He should have started noticing his son's problems. Of course, as you know, he wasn't a good example to them either and so forth. I was thinking about the communication of a father with a son or a daughter. Remember that. In Eli's case, there was no correction.
There was no communication. There was no example. And by the way, Eli was greedy for this very good. Remember how they changed the rules, and they put the hook in the pot, and they were only supposed to get a certain portion, but they had three teeth, and they devised their own method, and when somebody brought the offering, they put the three teeth in, and everything that came out was theirs. Lot had a problem of communication with his children, as you remember. And when the vital time came, when they needed to be listening to him, You know what the scripture says?
He seemed to them as when it mocked. When he ran around and told them the city's going to be destroyed, judgment's coming, and they wouldn't listen. You know why they wouldn't listen? Because he never had any communication with them when they were this big. We must think of the needs of our children and the needs of that precious homeowner. Don't get so busy making money. that you can't attend to your family needs. David had a problem like that too. Remember Absalom, how he got away from home. David never paid any attention to Absalom. He was raised by a tutor and so forth.
He probably hardly ever seen it. And then remember what he said when he learned of his death. He said, oh, Absalom, Absalom, would the God I had died for you. I say, how far does he live for? Father, We need to live for that family because God gave us that family, and that is the most important thing to us. Don't talk about your testimony in the street. Don't talk about your testimony at work. Don't talk about your testimony in the assembly if you haven't got that family life. Now, I do some teaching of young fellows that I want to see in the Lord's work. I have a little class like Brother Bill McDonald has.
But I only say... fellows that are absolutely, or say they're absolutely, dedicated to God. And this starts first. And it's got to be the whole life that starts that. You don't have that, you don't have anything. Fathers, you know what the Lord said in Proverbs chapter one and verse seven and eight. He says, Son, is an instruction to a son. Son, hear the instruction of your father. Now let me ask. How can the son hear it if the father never gave it? And then if he never made it very clear. You know, we don't make things clear enough to our children.
Take a little time. It takes time. It takes effort. You have to be out there making money all day and expect to have your children understand things fully. You need to make it clear to them and make it easy for them. And we have books in the store that help parents make it easy for their children to understand. I was thinking of Napoleon. You know, Napoleon wrote out all of his commandments to his commanders. All of his instructions were written out. And he'd write them out ahead of time. And he'd have it all written out there on his desk. And then he'd call in a stupid corporal. And he'd say, Corporal, read this.
And the corporal would read it. He said, okay, what does it mean? He figured that if that stupid corporal could understand it, then the general ought to be able to understand it. Now, let's get down to our children's level. Don't talk to a five-year-old on college level. He doesn't understand it. Get down to his level. Try to understand our children. Try to understand their thinking. Try to understand their problems. I can't emphasize that enough because it's extremely important. You know, a father ought to be the head of the home. He ought to be like a shepherd, like we have in Psalm twenty three. You know, you ought to carry a rod and a staff. You know what they're for?
The staff is to rescue and direction. What do you think the rod for? A little discipline. You don't see much of that today. Fathers, let's get a little more interested in that family and in the wife. A lot of fathers don't have any time for their wives and their children. You know, the scripture says that wives should submit themselves to their husbands in all things. Now, I have a problem with that. Because I think that starts with the husband. How in the world is a wife going to submit to her husband if he doesn't spend any time with her? For one thing. And how in the world is she going to submit to him if she doesn't get the word from him?
And realize... that he is directing this family for the glory of God. We've got to think about that, Father. Now, just a little bit about Mother's. Here's a believing Mother. And praise God for believing Mother. I can't tell you, I can't tell you how much we owe to them. Here's a Mother that had given birth to a son. And she, if you read the whole story, you realize that This is a little bit supernatural involved in this. And our brother Ray was telling us, don't be afraid of that. It's okay. I'm not. I believe in the supernatural. Well, anyway, she believed that God could give a rebirth, and she trusted the Lord.
She had her faith there. You know how she started out? You have to go back to verses eight and ten to find out how she started out. She started out providing a place for Elisha, a man of God, in her hope. And if you haven't invited them in, first, into your home, how do you expect them to direct their home? Invite Christ into the home. Now, let me say this because I won't have another chance. I don't know all about everybody. I know there's some unsaved. Now, if you're not saved yet, don't be trying to live this Christian life. Don't be trying to be a Christian father or a Christian mother. Just to be a Christian first.
Trust the Lord Jesus as your Savior and get the things settled about your sin. And get into the family. And then you can operate with the things. Anyway, she received Elijah first. She had taken the initiative. And now notice how in those verses how she went to her husband about this. He was just a path of man. He was so busy. He didn't have time. She said, well, I'd like to build a little room on the house for him. And by the way, this was a special place now. I don't want to forget that. This room was a special room that they built just for Elijah. How do we have a special place in our home for the Lord Jesus so that he can do supernatural works in our home like he did in this home?
You want to see the dead raise? Then make a little space special in your home for the Lord Jesus. Well, thank God for godly women. You know, if you have an unsaved sister, if you have an unsaved husband or an indifferent husband, don't let it be an excuse, please. Take the initiative under the still subjection to your husband, but take your initiative and run. to the man of God or run to the Lord Jesus.
He can be your strength. He can be your help. And he can give the life and the hope. Sisters, I feel for you. If you've got an unsaved husband or an indifferent husband or a husband that's too busy making money to spend any time with, I feel for you. But take the initiative and go to God about it. Because he can and will help. He's more interested in your family than... than we are. You know, when it talks about, our brother's been talking about love all week, I just thought of this, you know, we can learn to love. We can learn to love our families.
Sisters can learn to love their husbands. As a matter of fact, in Titus, older sisters are instructed to teach younger sisters what? to love their husband. Now, it's no use teaching if it wasn't possible to work. So if we haven't got it, we can learn it and learn to love that family. Love that family life having Christ in it. Now, this dead child was raised. There's no spiritual life ever without having gone to the Lord Jesus. This woman grabbed the hold of the man of God and she says, I won't leave.
I want you. I won't accept the substances. Sisters and brethren, we won't accept the substances. We want Christ to come to our aid. Right? We're not interested in the cold Cahazi method with the cold staff. You know, he comes and lays it on the child. I wish I had time to go in. This is interesting. He lays it on the child. Hmm. Nothing happens, let's go away. You know, he runs back to, well, nothing happens. You know, he wasn't expecting nothing to happen. He didn't want anything to happen. He didn't care whether anything happened or not. You know, he was a commercially minded fella. He saw immediately, there's not much in this for me. So why should I be so interested in it?
It's a cold staff method. Anyway, and there's a lot of legalism and so forth. But think about that little cold staff deal. And then measure that against the warmness, of delight. It's like that. When he comes and he lays himself on the child and he prays about it, he becomes individualistic about it, and he has such realities, and he adapts himself to the need of the child. His eyes on his eyes, his mouth on his mouth, and his hands on his hands, and all that. Now, listen, if we're going to see any of the dead raised, given the life, in other words, new birth, If we're going to see any of this, we have got to have that with the right hand.
Put ourselves into it. Now, brothers and sisters, are we putting ourselves into it in life? Like we should. One thing, let me notice one thing before I close. Chapter four there, and look at verse thirty-six. After the child was raised from the dead, notice what he said. And he called the Haviah and said, Call or shoot him a night. So he called her. And she was coming to him. He said, Take up the other. You go and say, He called her. Where's the father? Doesn't mention the father there. Where's the father? He's so busy out there making money that he misses witnessing one of the greatest miracles in the Old Testament, a resurrection from the dead.
He missed it. Fathers? you miss a lot in being so busy making money that you miss the miracles that maybe mama has to do with because she spent the time with the Lord and she took the initiative we have a book in our bookstore called workaholic you know what it deals with is these people that that uh They have to spend all of their time working and no time with the family. And you know the scripture says, render unto Caesar the things that are saved.
And there are God's things that are God. And you know what? In this day of ours, we're all excited. We're given Caesar everything. And not God, this portion. Father, are we given too much to Caesar? Too much to the job? Too much to the work deal? too much of making money, not enough of a lot of money. Listen, we have to, the whole thing comes down to the priority. What do we really want to follow? Now, personally, I, some time ago, turned down, and now I was going to earn a million dollars for handling a subsidization for some time.
You know, why I turned it down? Not because I didn't like the vision. Because I figured, in this case, I could get a life. But I have to put priorities. Activist priorities are important. It's really important. And this is important because some thirty years ago, a man was with us and we had contact with him. And after thirty years, he comes to us. He has a doctorate, he has been teaching in the University of New Orleans. He comes to me, writes me a letter, and he says, can I come to see you on need help? He said... Thirty years ago, I had contact with your family for a period of time.
And he said, I've been in churches. I've been around. But he said, I haven't seen the reality in the old. Like I saw with you people. And I wonder if you'd be willing to help us. We need that fire. And by the way, he did come. And he is really setting the word and he genuinely saved. And he did that.