Famine In Samaria…
“And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s 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, If the LORD do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? Out of the barn floor, or out of the winepress? And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said 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 he passed by upon the wall, and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh.”
There was once a famine in Samaria, the capital city of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. This famine was so great and severe that everyone became famished and was starving to death! All supplies were cut off and hopes for food were gone. The scarcity was so great that mothers resorted to killing the children of their wombs for food! Just imagine that! In like manner, many people have ventured into doing many abominable things in their hours of despondency. There are women, who in search of the fruit of the womb, have stooped so low as to have eaten demonic concoctions from herbalist and false prophets. There are also people who have embrace shady and devilish businesses at a time in their lives when all hopes seemed lost. Hopeless moments are critical and dangerous moments of desperation, except for divine help, many don’t usually come out of it without injury. I believe such a famine as described in the passage above would have produced extensive death tolls from malnutrition and starvation. It was just a hopeless situation.
The poor woman initially put her hope in the king, thinking the king by virtue of his position should be able to help them out. But alas! Even the king and his cabinet were not spared! The king laments the emptiness of the floor and the wine-press. He acknowledges himself thereby unable to help, unless God would help them. Note, creatures are helpless things without God, for every creature is that, all that, and only that, which God makes it to be. And when the king heard that people had resorted to eating their children, he lamented the calamity, rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth upon him. What a sad scene to behold!
It was in the midst of this dismal situation that a man of God- Elisha by name came out with a prophetic word of hope. “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.” Imagine that in the gate of Samaria where people were starving to death, eating the flesh of their children and with no iota of hope of survival; there in Samaria, where the hope of food was non-existent, there Elisha said in the next twenty four hours there shall be food in abundant supply! If you were in Samaria hearing this, how would you have reacted? In fact, I guess if Elisha had not been a reputable man of God that he was, they would have stoned him to death for uttering such a bogus statement when it was evidently clear there was nothing around at all in the palace of the king and in the entire vicinity of the land of Samaria to make it happen!
As a matter of fact, when Elisha prophesied of God’s miraculous intervention of supply in their hopeless situation, one of the chief officers of the king, “…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?” Imagine that kind of response! What kind of statement was that? A very hopeless statement! The officer’s faith and hope were gone to the extent that he ridiculed, underestimated and insulted God with His statement. To him, that kind of miracle against every human and visible evidence was such that was too hard for the Lord to do.
The word of the Lord came through anyway, but that officer of the king did not live to eat of it just as Elisha had said that “thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shall not eat thereof.” “And the king appointed the lord on whose hand he leaned to have the charge of the gate: and the people trod upon him in the gate, and he died, as the man of God had said, who spake when the king came down to him. And it came to pass as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, Two measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine flour for a shekel, shall be tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria” (11Kings 17: 18).
And it came to pass… It doesn’t matter how hopeless the situation, the word of the Lord will surely come to pass. “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Isa. 55: 11). Please, avoid ridiculing or insulting God even when you think you are hopeless. It is always dangerous. Remember also the ten spies sent by Moses to spy Jericho in the wilderness, because they doubted and disbelieve that which God had said by confessing negatively, they all died hopelessly in the wilderness save Caleb and Joshua who believed!
Is there a famine in your life today- famine of food, money, spouse, and friends? Whatever that famine may be, I come to you today with this prophetic word of Hope: Thus saith the Lord, after now, there shall be an abundant supply of that which is lacking in the mighty Name of Jesus! Did I hear you said a resounding Amen? Blessed are YOU that believe, for there shall be a performance of that which is being spoken unto YOU by the Lord.