Forward Living: Damn the Torpedoes
2 Kings 6:24-25 24 Sometime later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. 25 There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels.
2 Kings 6:31-7:2 31 He said, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!” 32 Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Don’t you see how this murderer is sending someone to cut off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold it shut against him. Is not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?” 33 While he was still talking to them, the messenger came down to him. The king said, “This disaster is from the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?” 7 Elisha replied, “Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says: About this time tomorrow, a seah of the finest flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.” 2 The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?” “You will see it with your own eyes,” answered Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it!”
2 Kings 7:3-5a 3 Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? 4 If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So, let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”5a At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans.
Big Idea #1 Forward Living requires a new lens of your current condition. What you see as holding you back may have just put you in the best position to push forward.
Movement Process #1. They identified and were unified on their objective: Living.
Big Idea #2 Forward Living requires clear objectives for bold movement to matter.
Movement Process #2. Assess known options.
Big Idea #3 Don’t settle for a slow death! Forward living requires you to fear dying more than you fear living.
Movement Process #3 They decided together and they moved together in wisdom. (Ecclesiastes 4, Proverbs 1&2, James 1, Psalm 1, John 16)
Big Idea #4 Forward Living requires wisdom and wisdom is widely available.
2 Kings 7:5b- 7 5b When they reached the edge of the camp, no one was there, 6 for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!” 7 So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.
Big Idea #5 God magnifies forward living because forward living magnifies God.
2 Kings 7:8 8 The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp, entered one of the tents and ate and drank. Then they took silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also.
Big Idea #6 Forward living produces more life than imagined.
2 Kings 7:9-10 9 Then they said to each other, “What we’re doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.” 10 So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, “We went into the Aramean camp and no one was there—not a sound of anyone—only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were.”
Big Idea #7 Your forward movement moves more people forward than just you.
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2 Kings 7:11-16 11 The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported within the palace. 12 The king got up in the night and said to his officers, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving; so they have left the camp to hide in the countryside, thinking, ‘They will surely come out, and then we will take them alive and get into the city.’” 13 One of his officers answered, “Have some men take five of the horses that are left in the city. Their plight will be like that of all the Israelites left here—yes, they will only be like all these Israelites who are doomed. So let us send them to find out what happened.” 14 So they selected two chariots with their horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army. He commanded the drivers, “Go and find out what has happened.” 15 They followed them as far as the Jordan, and they found the whole road strewn with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown away in their headlong flight. So the messengers returned and reported to the king. 16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of the finest flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, as the Lord had said.
Big Idea #8 Forward Living will always have its skeptics, move anyway.
2 Kings 7:17-20 17 Now the king had put the officer on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate, and the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died, just as the man of God had foretold when the king came down to his house. 18 It happened as the man of God had said to the king: “About this time tomorrow, a seah of the finest flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.” 19 The officer had said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?” The man of God had replied, “You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!” 20 And that is exactly what happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died.
Big Idea #9 Nothing is over until God says its over and when He says its over it is over.
Big Idea #10 Forward living requires you to shelve your own skepticism about God’s Big Promises.
Big Idea #1 Forward Living requires a new lens of your current condition. What you see as holding you back may have just put you in the best position to push forward.
Big Idea #2 Forward Living requires clear objectives for bold movement to matter.
Big Idea#3 Don’t settle for a slow death! Forward living requires you to fear dying more than you fear living.
Big Idea #4 Forward Living requires wisdom and wisdom is widely available.
Big Idea #5 God magnifies forward living because forward living magnifies God.
Big Idea #6 Forward living produces more life than imagined.
Big Idea #7 Forward Living will always have its skeptics, move anyway.
Big Idea #8 Your forward movement moves more people forward than just you.
Big Idea #9 Nothing is over until God says its over and when He says its over it is over.
Big Idea #10 Forward living requires you to shelve your own skepticism about your future.
How do you ensure you movement is God ordained? Surrender.
Surrender yourself to God.
Surrender your ways to God.
Surrender your timing to God.
Surrender your direction to God.
Surrender all desired outcomes to God.