"Elisha died and was buried."
2 Kings 13:20 (NIV)
Friend, death is so near to me, that tears fill my eyes as I typed in this verse. Oh we live under the shadow of death! (Ps 23:4) Oh we struggle under the bondage of our fear of death! (He 2:15) And oh what a blessed salvation we have in Our Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ! What a blessed hope we have in Him, for the grave could not hold Him, and therefore it will not hold us!
This passage in 2 Kings is precious to me for it not only gives us a glimpse of the glorious truth of resurrection, by describing an incident where a dead man came back to life after being thrown in on Elisha’s bones - but also for its declaration that a man of great faith died from an illness, and was buried in the ground. We seem to think based on the promise in James 5:15 that a person of great faith will always be healed from their sickness. We believe somehow that if only we had enough faith we could have persuaded God to heal and preserve the life of our loved ones. Oh friend, not many of us will have the faith that Elisha had! The disciples might have had faith as great as Elisha’s, but did these disciples of theirs, who are called elders in this passage, have that kind of faith? Yet Elisha died despite his great faith.
No, friend, there will be a day when our loved ones will lie on a bed suffering from the illness from which they will die. Will we still seek the LORD’s face in faith even when that day arrives? Friend, there will be a day when our loved ones go from that bed into their grave. Will we still seek the LORD’s face in faith even when that day arrives? I hope so friend, for there is a time to be born, and a time to die, and when that time to die arrives may we be found as completely dependent upon receiving the grace of God thru faith as Paul was when he heard His Lord and our Lord say in response to his pleas: “My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
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