We Do Not Well If We Do Not Tell

Praise the Lord. Alright, let’s take our Bibles. Turn over to the book of Second Kings, chapter number six. Second Kings, chapter number six. We are thrilled to be back in the service this evening. Grateful for what God did last night. Good time this morning with our missionaries, just getting to know them. We say talk and shop. That’s what we were doing, talk and shop. Talking about the practical aspects of the ministry. Talking about different things that you have to plan for and prepare for. We had a great time. I love talking about missions, I love talking about the mission field. I love hanging out with missionaries. Amen. We have a great group of missionaries here this week and I appreciate your pastor and his wife and everybody that has participated in all the meals. Amen. We had chicken spaghetti tonight for the first time. Amen. I’m hooked. Praise God. I’m hooked. Hallelujah. That was wonderful. All right, Second Kings, chapter number six. If you are there, say Amen. Verse number twenty four. The Bible says it came to pass after this that Benhadad, king of Syria, gathered all his host and went up and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria. And behold, they besieged it till an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver and the fourth part of a calf of doves, dung for five pieces of silver. And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, help my Lord, O king. And he said of the Lord, do not help thee. Whence shall I help thee? Out of the barn press or out of the barn floor? Out of the winepress? And the king said unto her, what aileth thee? And she answered this woman, say it unto me, Give thy son that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son and did eat him. And I said unto her, on the next day, give thy son that we may eat him. And she hath hid her son. And it came to pass when the king heard the words of the woman that he rent his clothes and passed by upon the wall. And people looked, and behold he had sackcloth within upon his flesh. Father, we pray that you would bless the word of God tonight as we, Lord, dive into these verses. I pray God that you would make them alive. I know maybe we’ve heard these verses preached before. Read them before. But I pray you’d show us something new tonight that will stir and challenge our hearts. We thank you Lord, for the presentation testimony. Brother Hinson. Lord, what a blessing, Lord, to see the grace of God at Work, Lord, to see the power of the gospel, Lord, right before our very eyes, Lord, bringing a man out of the prison, turn right around and put him back in there. As a preacher, I pray God that you bless them, help them get to the field quickly, bringing their support, bless their family and the birth of the new baby, Lord, that is imminent. I pray Lord, that you would be with them throughout all that have your will and way in the service. Tonight we pray in Jesus name, Amen. You can be seated, boy. When you read these verses that we’ve just read, it is for me, when I read them, I see so many similarities and applications that we can make to the world that we live in here in twenty twenty six. I When you read the story here, you understand that they have been besieged. You understand the ancient warfare there in the Bible days. Many times they would go out in the field and fight and sometimes they would just surround the city and they would just wait them out. And sometimes last month, sometimes even in the last couple years, they would dam up the creeks and prevent food and water from being able to go in. And that’s exactly what happens here in this story. After they had besieged Samaria, the Bible says in verse twenty five, there was a great famine in Samaria. And behold, they besieged it. So these people inside this city are dealing with a serious deprivation of needed resources. And when I think about the world, I see a world that has been besieged by Satan. I see a world that has been completely surrounded by the forces of evil. And I see people that are trying to survive without what they need. We can make so many applications to a city. Being besieged, surrounded by the enemy, and they are trapped and they can’t get out. If they try to get out, there’s nowhere to go. And so you think about them being under this slow, imminent sentence of death really is what it is. And that’s really where the world is. We’re having a missions conference. We’re making an application here. The world has been completely. And the Bible talks about the prince and the power of the air. The Bible talks about Satan as the God of this world. Because we know that folks are dying and going to hell without God every day. But they are living in a world that has been besieged by Satan, besieged by the demons and the devils of hell. And they have been what they need in many places and many situations has been cut off. They’ve got no access to it. They might want it, but they can’t get to it. And I know as we preached last night, there’s people out there looking for God, looking for the truth, looking for answers. They just don’t know where to find it. That Ethiopian eunuch left Ethiopia and got in a chariot and drove all the way to Jerusalem. And he was there. We don’t know how long he was there, but he spent some money and was able to get our hands on an Isaiah scroll, or at least part of one. It ain’t like you go to Walmart and buy a scroll of Isaiah. But somehow or another he procured a portion of scripture and without finding what he was looking for, he got back in that chariot and was headed back home just as hungry, just as empty, just as besieged as he was when he left. And he was reading that Isaiah scroll. And boy, he couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He just doesn’t understand it. He’s reading all this and God sent him a preacher. But the point I want to make is he said, Philip asked him, said, understandest thou when thou readest? He said, how can I, lest some man should guide me? There’s folks all over the world that’s in a spiritual famine. We see the destruction of the besieged folks that are all over the place. And then the Bible tells us as a result of this famine, in verse number twenty five, the Bible says they besieged it until an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver and a fourth part of a calf of doves, dung for five pieces of silver. People were eating asses heads. They were eating the dung from doves that they collected off of the ground or wherever they could find it, and they were selling it, and that’s what the people were living on. Now when we read that story right there, it’s hard for us to get our head wrapped around bad that that’s what you resort to having to live off of. But can I tell you something? If you want to make a spiritual application of that. Only thing worse than having to live off of ass’s head and dove’s dung is having to live off of Islam, live off of Hinduism, live off of Shintoism, these folks overseas that are worshiping all these gods. I went to India in twenty fourteen, took a missions trip to India and I mean, I had already been to Africa, lived there and traveled throughout Africa, but I got to India and I saw a spiritual darkness that I could not begin to imagine. They would sell those little gods, those little idols in all the stores, in the shops, and they’ve got millions of them. They don’t even know how many gods they’ve got. And they’re demonic. They’ve got all these arms and they’ve got all these heads and they’ve got all these legs. And many of them are in conducting explicit, vulgar acts. I mean, it’s just wicked. It’s ungodly. And that’s what these people grow up. And as we drove through India, people got these little alcoves in the yard and they would have these idols in there. And these people would go out there and take a plate of food in the morning and lay it in front of their God. And I thought to myself how horrible it would be for me to have to wake up every morning and be responsible for feeding my God. What a blessing it is to have a God that feeds me every morning. Amen. What a blessing it is to have a God that provides for me and my family. But these people, they have to feed and give water to their gods. And these are gods that they’ve carved out of wood and stone and they pray to them. But there’s nothing their God can do for them. Their God has no hands that can help them, don’t have ears that can hear and eyes that can see. And I think about these people and they’re living in that environment that besieging, that destruction, that death that is surrounding them has driven them to unspeakable forms of religion and idolatry. Doves dug and ass’s head. That’s what they’re living on when you get over in the United States. And we don’t have all that kind of idolatry, but we got a society today that is living on filth. They’re surviving on perversion. The things that they’re watching, the things that they’re listening to, the things that they are downloading on their phones and their computers. I mean, they are feeding their flesh with pure filth. Wickedness, ungodliness, you say, why would they do that? Because that’s all they know. That’s all they have. The Bible tells us that the king of Israel was passing by and cried a woman unto him, saying, help my Lord, o king. He said, the Lord did not help thee. When shall I help thee? Out of the barn floor, out of the winepress. He’s being sarcastic. What do you want me to do for you? I don’t have anything to give you. I don’t have anything that I can help you with. He said, what aileth thee? She said, this woman said unto me, give thy son that we may eat him today and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son and did eat him. And I said to her on the next day, now give thy son that we may eat him. And she hath hid her son and she goes to the king. And this is how bad it is. King, would you please make this woman kill her son so we have something to eat? King, would you please intervene? And would you please. It’s not fair. We boiled and ate my son yesterday, and now today she’s hid her son. Would you please make her kill her son so we can cannibalize and eat her son? The depravity, the wickedness, the unnatural affections. You know how bad off you have to be to kill your son and eat it and share it with another person. They were so depraved. They weren’t just depraved, they were emboldened to publicize it. Tell the king, who under normal circumstances would have probably stolen them for doing that. Here they are, they’re just brazenly yelling it out. They are screaming it out in the streets. They are telling the king, this is what we are doing. The Bible says the king was so distraught when he heard the words of the woman that he rent his clothes and passed by upon the wall. The people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh. He said, it’s unimaginable how bad it had gotten inside the walls of that city because of that being besieged. And he said in verse number thirty one, God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day. But Elisha sat in his house, and the elder sat with him, and the king sent a man from before him. But ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, see ye how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head. Look, when the messenger cometh, shut the door and hold him fast at the door. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him? And while he yet talked with him, Behold, the messenger came down unto him. And he said, behold, this evil is of the Lord. What? Shall I wait for the Lord any longer? Look at chapter seven, verse one. Then Elisha said, hear ye the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord. Tomorrow about this time, shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria. Here’s what Elisha said. Elisha said, there’s hope. There’s food. There’s help that’s on the way. This is not the end of the story. It hasn’t got to end like this. God’s going to intervene. God’s going to do something. And this time tomorrow, you won’t be selling doves dung and you won’t be selling asses heads in the marketplace. You’ll be selling a measure of fine flour for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria, help is on the way. Then the Lord, on whose hand the king leaned, answered the man of God and said, behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. When we read verse number two, I ain’t going to lie to you. When I read verse number two, I thought to myself, I know why he felt that way. I know why. That man that was standing there said, you mean to tell me that we’re going to go from eating doves dung and asses heads and boiling and killing our kids and eating them? We’re going to go from that to eating barley and bread like normal people? And he looks at them and he says, that’s not going to happen. There’s no way that can happen. If the Lord was to open up windows into heaven, what you just said is not going to happen. You know what that sounds like to me? That sounds like Baptist church members when you tell them about all the billions of people in the world that have never heard the gospel and saved, but Jesus died for them. Jesus died for those people and God wants to take them to heaven. And we look at one another and we don’t say it in so many words, but in our mind we’re like, it’s not going to happen. That’s never going to happen. There’s no way in the world that this can change. The situation is so bad. The world is so depraved. There’s too many people. The problem is overwhelming. There’s no possible way God himself can’t fix this. We wouldn’t say that with our mouth, but we think it in our mind. There’s no way the people in Bangladesh, the people in Nepal, there’s no way the people in. There’s no way the people in South America and those little villages up in the mountains, there’s no way them people is ever going to hear the gospel. God himself can’t fix this. This is what he said. If the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, behold, thou shalt see it with Thine eyes, but thou shalt not eat thereof. Look at verse three. Now, there were four leprous men at the entering into the gate. And they said one to another. And I’ve got this statement underlined in my Bible. Why sit we here until we die? I’ve got an outline tonight, but I don’t feel led to use it. I’m just going to go down through these verses. It’s four men dying of leprosy. Back in the day, there was no cure for leprosy. If you got leprosy, it was just a matter of time before you died. You were ostracized from society. You was out of caste. You were stuck out there with the other lepers. And they lived in leper colonies and they had to scream unclean, and they couldn’t interact with people. They had to leave their family, leave their wives, leave their kids and go out there and live in caves and whatever. And the Bible tells us there are four lepers at the entering into the gate. And they said one to another, why sit we here until we die? We’re dying, we’re dying. We don’t know when, but we’re dying. If we say we will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city and we shall die there. If we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore, come, let us fall under the host of the Syrians. This is the army that had surrounded Samaria, the ones that was besieging the city. Let us fall to the host of the Syrians. If they save us alive, we shall live. And if they kill us, we shall but die. And when you and I read those verses, we think that’s pretty desperate. Can I break you some news tonight? Everybody in here is going to die one day somewhere of something. If the rapture doesn’t take place, every one of us in here is going to die somewhere someday of something. The question is not are we dying? The question is are we just going to sit here until we die? That’s the question. Are we just going to sit here until we die? We don’t know when we’re going to die, but we know we will. It’s the point of unto man wants to die. After this, the judgment, we’re going to die now. We’re going to go to heaven if we’re saved. But I’m talking about sit here until we die. I remember when we were on deputation to go to South Africa. I could not believe how many people cutting to me they said, you do understand forty five percent of the People in South Africa has got hiv. Do you understand that? Do you understand that you could go to Africa and get aids? I said, well, we got AIDS here. I said, if God wanted to kill me with aids, he could do it here. He doesn’t have to send me to Africa to do it. And then I would have people come up to me and they would say, we have five kids now. We had three at the time, two in diapers when we were on deputation. And they would come up to us and say, are you telling me that you are going to take those three beautiful children to Africa? I got to where I would just say to them, I said, if they were ugly, could I take them? If they were ugly, would you just take us on to get us out of your face? What are you saying? I’m supposed to stand before God one day at the judgment seat and say, I can’t do what you call me to do because you blessed me with three beautiful children? Come on now. Why sit we here until we die? Everybody’s going to die somewhere someday of something. You don’t have to go to Africa to die. You don’t have to go to the Mission Field to die. I’ll be honest with you. I think that’s why some people don’t go to the Mission Field. They’re afraid they’re going to go over there and die. Last time I checked, we got funeral homes and cemeteries over here. People dying over here, left and right. Why sit we here until we die? They said if we enter the city, we’re going to die. If we stay where we’re at, we’re going to die. They said the worst thing that could happen to us is that we die. But we’re already dying. We’re already dying. You know why some people won’t give the missions? They’re afraid they’re going to starve to death. You know what’s the worst thing that could happen to you? If you give domissions, you die, but you’re dying anyway. You’re going to die anywhere. You’re going to die someday somewhere or something. Let’s keep reading. Everybody still with me? They rose up in the twilight. Verse five. To go unto the camp of the Syrians. And when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots and a noise of horses, even the noise of great host. And they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to come upon us. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight and left their tents and their horses and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. Verse number eight. And when these lepers came to the uttermost. Where did you find that word uttermost? You see that word uttermost somewhere else somewhere in the Bible, didn’t you? When these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent and did eat and drink and carried thence silver and gold and raiment, and went and hid it, and came again and entered into another tent and carried thence also and went and hid it. Just stop a second. I want you to just imagine this. I mean, these old boys had been sitting outside the gate starving to death. There was nobody inside the city that had any food to give them. How they were staying alive, I don’t know. But, I mean, you had to imagine how hungry they were. They creep upon this camp, and everybody in the camp has taken off running. They think that they’re being attacked. The Lord let them hear the sounds of chariots and horses, and they just left. And they left everything like it was. And these four lepers creep up on this camp, and all of a sudden they see this thing. There’s campfires and there’s tents and there’s horses and mules tied up over here. There’s food roasting over the pots and. And there’s food cooking on the stoves. And the Bible says they did eat and drink. It says they just eat and drink. But just think about that for a minute. I mean, that’s just a couple of words, and it just blows right on through it. But you think about four lepers that are starving to death coming up on a smorgasbord. Can you imagine what that must have been like? I mean, they didn’t know where to start. There’s venison cooking over here, and there’s spaghetti over here and there’s some tacos over here because, you know, there was some tacos. Hallelujah. And there was some fajitas over here, and there was a pot roast over here and some mashed potatoes and gravy over here. And they’re just eating and they’re drinking and they’re eating and they’re drinking. And they don’t tell them how long it took them to get full. They probably ate for an hour. That’s how long we eat. When we go to the smorgasbord, when we go to the buffet, Amen. That’s all you can eat buffet. Every time I go, all you can eat buffet. Them Chinese people get so nervous. They’re like, you done been here four hours, don’t eat no more. I don’t know how long these old boys are eating, but they’re running around eating. All of a sudden, one of them sees some gold, one of them sees some silver. He’s looking around, he grabs it and he runs out there in the woods, goes over behind a bush and digs a hole and he buries it. And he runs over here and he finds some more gold and silver. And I mean, they’re just running around and they’re going out and they’re hiding it. That’s what the Bible says. Can you imagine the ecstasy? Can you imagine the joy? Could you imagine their unbelief? Their whole world has just changed. The Bible says they ran and hid it and came again and entered into another tent and caritence also. And these four guys are all just doing the same thing. And they’re eating and they’re drinking and they’re. And it’s almost like they all just kind of bumped into one another in the middle of the camp and stopped and looked at one another. And they said, one to another, this ain’t right. This ain’t right. What we’re doing is not right. They thought they’d hit the jackpot there for a minute. And I think about how many people sit in our churches that God has blessed. And we got food in the freezer, we got food in the cupboards, we got money in the bank, we got stuff. We’re working, we’re making money, we’re putting it over here. And we’re squirreling some away over here for a rainy day. And our wives hiding some over here for vacations and putting some away over here for Christmas. And we’re just. And they said, this ain’t right. We do not wail when you’re not wail. This day is a day of good tidings. That’s another word for the gospel. Good News. The word gospel means good news. But can I tell you something? The gospel is not the good news if it doesn’t get there in time. This day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace. We’re keeping it a secret. Nobody knows it’s here. We’re the only ones that knows where the food is. We’re eating it like we’re the only ones on planet Earth. We’re eating this. We’re eating this food like God put all this food here for our four and no more. That’s right. Yes, sir. We’re acting like all this silver and all this gold that we’ve stumbled on, that God put it here just for us. And we do not wail if we do not tell. We do not wail if we do not tell. Today is the day of good tidings and we hold our peace. What we’re doing is not right. He realized it wasn’t right because there was enough food there for everybody. There was enough drink there for everybody. There was enough gold and silver there for everybody. It was more than four men that were dying would ever be able to spend. I mean, here’s four men that’s dying of leprosy and they’re stockpiling gold and silver like they’re going to live forever. We got people sitting in our independent Fundamental Baptist churches that are more concerned about their four hundred one k and their iras and their savings account and their little rainy day fund than they are getting the gospel around the world. I’m telling you, you’re dying. We’re all dying. We don’t know we’re going to live. Tomorrow the Antichrist is going to cash in on all of your savings and he’s going to spend it to deceive the world when we should have used it world with the gospel. We do not wail if we do not tell. But then they had a reasoning that absolutely blew my mind. They said, if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief may befall us. They did not say if we wait until tomorrow, there’s going to be people dying of starvation in the city. They didn’t say that. They didn’t say if we don’t go tell these people where the food is, our neighbors are going to be starving. There’s going to be some little kids that are going to get boiled and eaten tomorrow, possibly. That isn’t what they said. Here’s what they said. They said, if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief may befall us. The tragedy is not the people in the world that are dying without God. The tragedy is those of us that have the answer dying before we can go tell them the truth. They say we’re dying. We don’t know how long we’re going to live. We could wake up tomorrow dead. Perhaps some mischief may befall us. And the tragedy, the horrifying tragedy, would be for us to die knowing there’s food and drink and gold and silver over here and never having had a chance to tell somebody else. I thought about this. If you died right now, as opposed to dying five years from now, how many more people would go to heaven? If you lived five more years or two more years, how many people, if you died right now, would go to hell? They’re thinking about them dying, not the people in the city dying. And here’s what occurred to me. We have no control over the people in the city dying of starvation. The only thing we can control is making sure we tell as many people as we can where the food is before we die. Our life is like a vapor. I was right in the room with my wife yesterday, and I told her everything that I do in the ministry. I think about eternity. I have people trusting me. They say, you’re doing too much. You’re trying to do too much. And I said, maybe I’m just trying to offset some of the people that aren’t doing nothing. When you have two people cleaning the kitchen up and one of them is on the phone playing, and the other one is doing all the work, somebody has to do it. You can fuss at the one for doing it, or you can fuss at the one that ain’t doing nothing. Say, won’t you help them light and the load? I’m looking at people sitting in our churches, and I want to shake them and say, why sit you here until you die? You get up in the morning, you go to work, you work your job, you get in your truck, come back home, get a shower, eat supper, go to bed, get up the next morning, do it again, do it for forty years, and then you sit in a nursing home until you die. What did you do? What did you do for God? What difference did you make? What impact did you make? How many people did you save out of hell? How many people did you tell the gospel to? Because God didn’t put us here to just live and die. He put us here to give us a job to do. He gave us a task. He gave us a job. He gave us a purpose. So many people live their whole lives. They don’t ever Make a difference. People around them dying, going to hell. They don’t have nothing to do with trying to keep them saved, get them saved, keep them out of hell. If we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will befall us. Now therefore come that we may go and tail the king’s household. So they came. I love this. They didn’t draw straws on who was going to go and tell while the rest of them got to stay and eat some more and hide some more gold and silver. They didn’t fix straws. They didn’t do rock vapor scissors. All four of them went back. I said this last night and I’m going to keep saying it. It’s every one of our jobs. It’s every one of our jobs to reach the world. We don’t get to hand pick a couple of people to go for us. We all have a job to do. Everybody not can go to Italy. Everybody might not go into the prisons in North Carolina. Everybody might not be able to go into Africa. But I can tell you this right now. You got somewhere that you can go? There’s people somewhere that you can go? There’s people somewhere that you can go? There’s people somewhere that you can go? There’s people somewhere that you can go? There’s people somewhere that you can go? There’s people somewhere that you can go? There’s people somewhere that you can go? There’s people somewhere that you can go? There’s people somewhere that you can go?

Scripture Reference

2 Kings 6:24–7:17

Introduction

Bro. Stacey Shiflett preached from 2 Kings 6:24–7:17 a message that connects the desperate famine of besieged Samaria to the spiritual famine of the world today. The picture is stark: people reduced to eating what they can find, enslaved to false gods or filth, while many believers quietly hoard what God has given instead of sharing the gospel. The sermon drives home a hard but loving challenge: we do not do well if we do not tell. If the gospel stays quiet where it can save, the lost perish. This sermon calls Christians to wake up, move out of their comfort zones, and use their time, resources, and voice to get food to the starving souls of a dying world.

Praise the Lord. Alright, let’s take our Bibles. Turn over to the book of Second Kings, chapter number six. Second Kings, chapter number six. We are thrilled to be back in the service this evening. Grateful for what God did last night. Good time this morning with our missionaries, just getting to know them. We say talk and shop. That’s what we were doing, talk and shop. Talking about the practical aspects of the ministry. Talking about different things that you have to plan for and prepare for. We had a great time. I love talking about missions, I love talking about the mission field. I love hanging out with missionaries. Amen.

Outline

Situation: Samaria Besieged — Spiritual Famine and Physical Despair
1. Text focus: 2 Kings 6:24–25 — famine, cessations of provision, and terrible desperation (asses’ heads and dove’s dung sold).
2. Explanation: The siege is literal; it is also symbolic. Just as the city was cut off from food and water, the world is cut off from the Bread of Life by Satan’s deception (cf. John 6:35). People try substitutes that cannot save.
3. Application: Recognize that spiritual famine exists — not merely physical hunger, but souls starving for truth and forgiveness.
Desperation Displayed — Depravity and Denial
1. Text focus: 2 Kings 6:26–30 — moral collapse: cannibalism and public declaration of horror.
2. Explanation: Sin, when pushed to the edge, reveals how far humanity will go without God. The king’s reaction (rending clothes, sackcloth) shows the gravity of spiritual collapse.
3. Application: Do not be naïve about sin’s destructive power. It is both ugly and urgent; souls are in peril right now.
Prophecy and Pessimism — God Promises Relief, Man Doubts
1. Text focus: 2 Kings 7:1–2 — Elisha proclaims relief; a skeptical attendant replies, “If the Lord would make windows in heaven…”
2. Explanation: God often promises impossible reversals; human reasoning doubts. The sceptic saw the scale of crisis and concluded the promise could not be fulfilled.
3. Application: Trust God’s promise even when the situation looks hopeless (Hebrews 11:1). The gospel is the greatest reversal imaginable — death to life.
Decision and Daring — Why Sit We Here Until We Die?
1. Text focus: 2 Kings 7:3–4 — the four lepers refuse passive death and decide to act.
2. Explanation: They evaluate the alternatives: starve where they are or take the risk to approach the enemy camp. Their logic is bold and honest: we are already dying; the only shame would be to die knowing help was nearby but withheld.
3. Application: Christians are called to take risks for the gospel. The fear that keeps us passive is often the fear of loss — but we all face death; better to die having told than to live hoarding.
Discovery and Disclosure — Abundant Provision and the Duty to Tell
1. Text focus: 2 Kings 7:5–11 — the lepers find the abandoned camp, eat and hide the spoil, but conscience compels them to tell the city.
2. Explanation: There was enough for all; the lepers realized the theft would be wrong to keep secret. Their conscience and compassion lead to proclamation: “This day is a day of good tidings” — the gospel must be proclaimed.
3. Application: God has supplied both means and message. Believers must move from private enjoyment of God’s blessings to public sharing — resources, time, and testimony are to be used for the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20).
Urgency and Eternity — Some Mischief May Befall Us
1. Text focus: 2 Kings 7:9–10 — “If we tarry till the morning light, some mischief may befall us.”
2. Explanation: Their concern was not only for the city but for themselves: they could die before sharing the good news. That is a sober reminder that our opportunities are limited.
3. Application: Live with kingdom urgency. Give, go, and speak now. Plan but don’t procrastinate. Use your possessions and your platform for evangelism and missions. Imagine the eternal loss if you die having kept the gospel to yourself.
Fulfillment and Warning — Blessing Missed by the Skeptic
1. Text focus: 2 Kings 7:16–17 — the prophecy is fulfilled; the skeptic died in the gate and could not enjoy the blessing.
2. Explanation: God fulfilled His word. The man who scoffed “if the Lord made windows in heaven…” missed the blessing he distrusted. It’s a picture of those who doubt God’s command to reach the lost and thereby forfeit opportunity.
3. Application: Do not be the skeptic. Trust God’s promises and act. The church is to be a sending people — prayer, giving, and going are required habits, not optional extras.

Summary

Bro. Shiflett’s sermon from 2 Kings 6–7 pictures a besieged city and starving people to wake believers to the reality of spiritual famine. The Lord promises relief, but people will perish if the news does not reach them. The four lepers model bold faith: they risked themselves, found abundant provision, and then told the city. The preacher’s forceful point is simple and convicting: the gospel is only “good news” when it reaches the lost. If we hoard our time, money, and testimony, we do not do well — because the lost are dying. The remedy is urgent obedience: trust God, use the means He’s given, and tell others where the Bread of Life can be found.

This day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace. We do not wail if we do not tell.

Quote to Ponder

This day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace. We do not wail if we do not tell.

Application for the Week

Practical, measurable steps you can take this week to obey the sermon and share the gospel.

Pray with urgency
1. Daily 5-minute mission prayer: Each morning this week set aside five minutes to pray specifically for an unreached people group or a neighbor who needs Christ. Ask the Lord to open doors and give you boldness.
Give with intention
1. Faith-promise increase: Revisit your giving. If you already support missions, consider a sacrificial one-time gift or a small recurring increase this month. If you do not support missions yet, commit to a start amount and put it on the church’s giving card or online giving.
Tell one person
1. Start locally: Identify one coworker, neighbor, or friend to share the gospel with this week. Pray for them, ask for a conversation, and present the simple gospel message: sin, Christ’s substitutionary death, repentance and faith, and assurance of salvation.
Use your skills and time
1. Volunteer in a ministry: Join the church visitation team, help with Bible distribution, or sign up to help with a missions outreach. If you can’t go overseas, serve at home — many missionaries need prayer, logistical help, and support.
Declutter a subscription
1. Reallocate resources: Review monthly subscriptions and unnecessary spending. Cancel one unused subscription and reassign that money to missions or local evangelism.
Share a testimony or resource
1. Social media gospel post: Post a short testimony, a Scripture (KJV), or a missions link this week that points people to Christ. Keep it simple and kingdom-minded.
Make a “last-resort” plan
1. Be ready to act now: Like the lepers who would not “tarry till the morning light,” make a small plan for immediate obedience — a phone call to a friend to share Christ, a text with a gospel link, or an invitation to church this Sunday. Do it today rather than procrastinate.

May the Lord rebuke our hoarding hearts and make us a people who gladly tell. Remember: the gospel is good news only when it is given. Let us be those who do not sit until we die, but those who go and tell the starving world where the Bread of Life is found.