Three Problems, One Solution

Three Problems One Answer
8+2=? 7+3=? 6+4=?
The answer is always “More Bible”
The answer may not always be Read more Bible; it could
be Value the Bible more, or Trust the Bible more, or Obey
the Bible more.
God has designed man in such a way that no matter what
equation life gives you He is the answer.
Three Problems One Solution
I. The Problem with Prestige 2Kgs 2:19-21
Value Situation over The Saviour
A big fine house and a fancy car with a bank account full
of money suddenly loses its value if you can’t get water.
2Kgs 2
19 And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray
thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord
seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren.

20 And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt
therein. And they brought it to him.
21 And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and
cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the LORD, I have
healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any
more death or barren land.
John 7:37-38 37 In the last day, that great day of the
feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let
him come unto me, and drink.
38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out
of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
1Cor 10:21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the
cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table,
and of the table of devils.
Eph 5:25-26 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ
also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing
of water by the word,
1Pet 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and
abideth for ever.

2Chr 25:5-9 5 Moreover Amaziah gathered Judah
together, and made them captains over thousands, and
captains over hundreds, according to the houses of their
fathers, throughout all Judah and Benjamin: and he
numbered them from twenty years old and above, and
found them three hundred thousand choice men, able to
go forth to war, that could handle spear and shield.
6 He hired also an hundred thousand mighty men of
valour out of Israel for an hundred talents of silver.
7 But there came a man of God to him, saying, O king, let
not the army of Israel go with thee; for the LORD is not
with Israel, to wit, with all the children of Ephraim.
8 But if thou wilt go, do it, be strong for the battle: God
shall make thee fall before the enemy: for God hath power
to help, and to cast down.
9 And Amaziah said to the man of God, But what shall
we do for the hundred talents which I have given to
the army of Israel? And the man of God answered, The
LORD is able to give thee much more than this.
2Chr 25:11 And Amaziah strengthened himself, and led
forth his people, and went to the valley of salt, and
smote of the children of Seir ten thousand.
The Problem with Prestige

II. The Problem with a Phony 2Kgs 3:4-5
Trust Scheme over The Saviour
2Kgs 3:4-5 4 And Mesha king of Moab was a
sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel an
hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams,
with the wool.
5 But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king
of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.
2Kgs 3:26-27 26 And when the king of Moab saw that
the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven
hundred men that drew swords, to break through even
unto the king of Edom: but they could not.
27 Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned
in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the
wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and
they departed from him, and returned to their own land.
The King of Moab was besieged in Kirharaseth by the
allied armies of Israel, and Judah, and Edom. Finding
himself hard pressed, he selected seven hundred of the
choicest of his troops to head an assault against his
enemies, but was driven back.

Turning in despair to his counsellors, says a Jewish
legend, he inquired how it was that such feats of valour
could be done by the men of Israel, and how such miracles
were wrought in their behalf; to which his counsellors
replied, that they sprang from Abraham, who had an only
son, and offered him in sacrifice to God.
“Then I, too, have an only son,” said the King of Moab. “I
also will go and offer him up as a sacrifice to my god;”
upon which, as is stated in 2Kings 3:27 “he took his eldest
son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered
him for a burnt offering upon the wall.”
It is not likely that the explanation of the Rabbis is
correct. More than likely the act of Mesha was done out of
pure, blind, debasing superstition--as a peace-offering or
bloody sacrifice to the Moabitish war-god, Chemosh.
Philo tells us it was a custom among the ancients, in
times of great national disaster, for those who had the rule
in either town or country to give up the well-beloved child
of their families to be put to death, as a ransom price to
secure the favour of the gods.
(Tennyson’s poem, “The Victim.”)
In a time of plague and famine the gods,
When consulted, answer-
The king is happy in child and wife.
Take you his nearest;

take you his dearest:
give us a life.
Caiaphas-
John 11:49-50 49 And one of them, named Caiaphas,
being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye
know nothing at all,
50 Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man
should die for the people, and that the whole nation
perish not.
This is the way the unbelieving world has all along
endeavored to make peace with God.
“How shall I obtain forgiveness? how shall a man be
justified before God?”
As if the guilt already incurred by a sinner could be wiped
away by the simple process of compounding more!
But is that very superstition which made a victim of the
son of Mesha on the wall of Kirharaseth, still present and
active today?

Even Christians today offer sacrifice, to purchase heaven’s
favour, if not the fruit of our bodies, the fruit of our souls--
our good deeds, our moral lives, our excellent dispositions,
our money or service.
These are as much a sacrifice of superstition as was that of
Mesha. The only difference is, that Mesha’s sacrifice was
offered to an idol; whereas ours is presented to the living
God. If there is a point of difference, it is that Mesha knew
no better, whereas we know that all such sacrifices are
vain. God’s favor is only found by abiding in His Son; all
man’s deeds are competing for a case that is already
closed. (T. Whitelaw, M. A.)
Rom 6
1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that
grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any
longer therein?
3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into
Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into
death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by
the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life.

5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of
his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his
resurrection:
6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him,
that the body of sin might be destroyed, that
henceforth we should not serve sin.
7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall
also live with him:
9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth
no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that
he liveth, he liveth unto God.
11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye
should obey it in the lusts thereof.
13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God,
as those that are alive from the dead, and your members
as instruments of righteousness unto God.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are
not under the law, but under grace.
15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the
law, but under grace? God forbid.

16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves
servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey;
whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto
righteousness?
The Problem with Prestige
The Problem with a Phony
III. The Problem with Pride 2Kgs 5:11-14
Obey Self Reason over The Saviour
2Kgs 5
11 But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said,
Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and
stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and
strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.
12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better
than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and
be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.
13 And his servants came near, and spake unto him,
and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do
some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?

how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and
be clean?
14 Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times
in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and
his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and
he was clean.
Vs11 “I thought”, yep that is the same thing he had been
doing all along that never gave him healing.
Conclusion:
For Naaman to get the answer required the rejection of
all the former false equations:
 He had to value salvation over the status of his
prestige.
 He had to trust the Word of God over the schemes
of the gods of Syria.
 He had to obey the Word of God over the Pride of
human reason.
I may not know what problem life has or will hand you but
You and I know where the answer is- The Word of God.

Three Problems One Answer
I. The Problem with Prestige 2Kgs 2:19-21
II. The Problem with a Phony 2Kgs 3:4-5
III. The Problem with Pride 2Kgs 5:11-14
Obey Self Reason over The Saviour
Conclusion:

Three Problems, One Solution

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Three Problems, One Solution