Bible Lesson: Intercessory Prayer:
Elisha Prays And The Shunammite's Son Is Restored.
Bible Text:
II Kings 4:8-37 NLT
8 One day Elisha went to the town of
Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to come to her
home for a meal. After that, whenever he passed that way, he would
stop there for something to eat.
9 She said to her husband, “I am sure
this man who stops in from time to time is a holy man of God.
10 Let’s build a small room for him
on the roof and furnish it with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp.
Then he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by.”
11 One day Elisha returned to Shunem,
and he went up to this upper room to rest.
12 He said to his servant Gehazi, “Tell
the woman from Shunem I want to speak to her.” When she appeared,
13 Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tell her,
‘We appreciate the kind concern you have shown us. What can we do
for you? Can we put in a good word for you to the king or to the
commander of the army?” “No,” she replied, “my family takes
good care of me.”
14 Later Elisha asked Gehazi, “What
can we do for her?” Gehazi replied, “She doesn’t have a son,
and her husband is an old man.”
15 “Call her back again,” Elisha
told him. When the woman returned, Elisha said to her as she stood in
the doorway,
16 “Next year at this time you will
be holding a son in your arms!” “No, my lord!” she cried. “O
man of God, don’t deceive me and get my hopes up like that.”
17 But sure enough, the woman soon
became pregnant. And at that time the following year she had a son,
just as Elisha had said.
18 One day when her child was older, he
went out to help his father, who was working with the harvesters. 19
Suddenly he cried out, “My head hurts! My head hurts!” His father
said to one of the servants, “Carry him home to his mother.”
20 So the servant took him home, and
his mother held him on her lap. But around noontime he died.
21 She carried him up and laid him on
the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and left him there. 22
She sent a message to her husband: “Send one of the servants and a
donkey so that I can hurry to the man of God and come right back.”
23 “Why go today?” he asked. “It
is neither a new moon festival nor a Sabbath.” But she said, “It
will be all right.”
24 So she saddled the donkey and said
to the servant, “Hurry! Don’t slow down unless I tell you to.”
25 As she approached the man of God at
Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in the distance. He said to Gehazi,
“Look, the woman from Shunem is coming.
26 Run out to meet her and ask her, ‘Is
everything all right with you, your husband, and your child?’”
“Yes,” the woman told Gehazi,
“everything is fine.”
27 But when she came to the man of God
at the mountain, she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of
his feet. Gehazi began to push her away, but the man of God said,
“Leave her alone. She is deeply troubled, but The Lord has not told
me what it is.”
28 Then she said, “Did I ask you for
a son, my lord? And didn’t I say, ‘Don’t deceive me and get my
hopes up’?”
29 Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Get
ready to travel; take my staff and go! Don’t talk to anyone along
the way. Go quickly and lay the staff on the child’s face.”
30 But the boy’s mother said, “As
surely as The Lord lives and you yourself live, I won’t go home
unless you go with me.” So Elisha returned with her.
31 Gehazi hurried on ahead and laid the
staff on the child’s face, but nothing happened. There was no sign
of life. He returned to meet Elisha and told him, “The child is
still dead.”
32 When Elisha arrived, the child was
indeed dead, lying there on the prophet’s bed.
33 He went in alone and shut the door
behind him and prayed to The Lord.
34 Then he lay down on the child’s
body, placing his mouth on the child’s mouth, his eyes on the
child’s eyes, and his hands on the child’s hands. And as he
stretched out on him, the child’s body began to grow warm again!
35 Elisha got up, walked back and forth
across the room once, and then stretched himself out again on the
child. This time the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes!
36 Then Elisha summoned Gehazi. “Call
the child’s mother!” he said. And when she came in, Elisha said,
“Here, take your son!”
37 She fell at his feet and bowed
before him, overwhelmed with gratitude. Then she took her son in her
arms and carried him downstairs.
The lady of Shunem, so longed for a
son to care for her in her old age, but alas she had none. Elisha the
man of God promised her, that even in her old age, within a year,
God, with who nothing is impossible, would give her a son, and it was
so.
A story reminiscent of Abraham's day.
Genesis 18:9-14 KJV
9 Then they said to him (Abraham),
“Where is Sarah your wife?” So he said, “Here, in the tent.”
10 And He said, “I will certainly
return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your
wife shall have a son.” (Sarah was listening in the tent door which
was behind him.)
11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old,
well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.
12 Therefore Sarah laughed within
herself, saying, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my
lord being old also?”
13 And The Lord said to Abraham,
“Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I surely bear a child, since
I am old?’
14 Is anything too hard for
The Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you,
according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”
Genesis 21:1-3 KJV
1 And The Lord visited Sarah as He
had said, and The Lord did unto Sarah as He had spoken.
2 For Sarah conceived, and bare
Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken
to him.
3 And Abraham called the name of his
son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.
Now that dear son,
a young man, had gone out at harvest time (the hottest time of the
year) to help his father out in the fields.
Was it a stroke, or
heat stroke, we are not told, but no matter, the thing that mattered
was the fact that the dear young man, was dead.
The
Shunammite had great faith, she would not share the fact that her son
was dead, so as to become discuoraged, but rather set out quickly to
find the man of God.
Elisha
could sense something was wrong about her son, for she spoke only of
him. Quickly they went off to the young boys body, which was laying
on the bed of the prophet.
Alone
with God........................................
II Kings 4:33
NLT
He went in
alone and shut the door behind him and prayed to The Lord.
Alone
With God.
When storms of life are round me
beating,
When rough the path that I have trod,
Within my closet door retreating,
I love to be alone with God.
Refrain:
Alone with God, the world forbidde
Alone with God, O blest retreat!
Alone with God, and in Him hidden,
To hold with Him communion sweet.
What though the clouds have gathered
o’er me?
What though I’ve passed beneath the
rod?
God’s perfect will there lies before
me,
When I am thus alone with God.
’Tis there I find new strength for
duty,
As o’er the sands of time I plod;
I see the king in all His beauty,
While resting there alone with God.
And when I see the moment nearing
When I shall sleep beneath the sod,
When time with me is disappearing,
I want to be alone with God.
Johnson Oatman, Jr 1904
PDF
Dear friend, you will never have more
strength and power in public service for The Lord, than you have
received in waiting upon The Lord, in private.
“Wasn't this just simply the first
case of CPR?”
Definitely not!
This young man had died at noon, and
the Shunammite
had to travel by donkey cart some some 20 miles to Mount Carmel to
the west, and then return.
At
their return it would be late afternoon. Anyone imploring CPR, knows
this technique can't help a corpse of some 5, 6 hours.
This
was no more CPR than the feeding of the 5,000 was an act of
Jerusalem food catering.
II
Kings 4:33 NLT (Elisha)
“...
prayed to The Lord.”
Matthew 21:21 KJV
Jesus answered and said unto them,
Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not
only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say
unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea;
it shall be done.
II Kings 4:34-37
34 Then he lay down on the child’s
body, placing his mouth on the child’s mouth, his eyes on the
child’s eyes, and his hands on the child’s hands. And as he
stretched out on him, the child’s body began to grow warm again!
35 Elisha got up, walked back and
forth across the room once, and then stretched himself out again on
the child. This time the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes!
36 Then Elisha summoned Gehazi.
“Call the child’s mother!” he said. And when she came in,
Elisha said, “Here, take your son!”
37 She fell at his feet and bowed
before him, overwhelmed with gratitude. Then she took her son in her
arms and carried him downstairs.
Matthew 19:26
KJV
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto
them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are
possible.
Because of Elisha's
intercessory prayer, the Shunammite's
son was restored to life.
Matthew 17:20
KJV
And
Jesus said unto them...verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a
grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence
to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible
unto you.
Who
are you interceding for?
Be
a person of faith and power, God hears and answers prayer!
(“Unlocking
The Mysteries Of Pray”
Amazon.Com. Thank you for all your kind letters, they are so very
much appreciated. Remember to tell a friend about “The
Bible Prayer Line”. Our Lord
bless and keep you.)
Joseph
J. Reine
Intercessory
Prayer:
Job
16:21 NLT (Job's prayer)
21
I need someone to mediate between God and me, as a person mediates
between friends.
22
For soon I must go down that road from which I will never return.
Joel
2:17 NLT
Let
the priests, who minister in The Lord’s presence, stand and weep
between the entry room to the Temple and the altar. Let them pray,
“Spare your people, Lord!.."
Luke
22:32 KJV
But
I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not..."
Acts 12:5-12 NLT (Read the whole
story 1-17.)
5 But while Peter was in prison, the
church prayed very earnestly for him.
6 The night before Peter was to be
placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two
soldiers. Others stood guard at the prison gate.
7 Suddenly, there was a bright light
in the cell, and an Angel Of The Lord stood before Peter.
The Angel struck him on the side to
awaken him and said, “Quick! Get up!” And the chains fell off his
wrists.
8 Then The Angel told him, “Get
dressed and put on your sandals.” And he did. “Now put on your
coat and follow me,” The Angel ordered.
9 So Peter left the cell, following
The Angel. But all the time he thought it was a vision. He didn’t
realize it was actually happening.
10 They passed the first and second
guard posts and came to the iron gate leading to the city, and this
opened for them all by itself. So they passed through and started
walking down the street, and then
The Angel suddenly left him.
11 Peter finally came to his senses.
“It’s really true!” he said. “The Lord has sent His Angel and
saved me from Herod and from what the Jewish leaders had planned to
do to me!”
12 When he realized this, he went to
the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many were gathered
for prayer.
Ephesians 1:16 NLT (The Apostle Paul to the Ephesian
believers.)
I have not
stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly
Ephesians 6:18
NLT
Pray in The
Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be
persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.
I Timothy 2:1
KJV
I exhort
therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions,
and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
James 5:16 NLT
Confess your
sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces
wonderful results.
