Frankie Mazzapica - Bad Water
Thank you for tuning in today. My name's Frankie Mazzapica. The title of today's message is "Bad Water". Bad Water. Let me share with you the Scripture that's building the foundation for this message so that the title will actually make sense. 2 Kings chapter 2, verse 19, one day, the leaders of the town of Jericho went to visit Elisha. They came to him and said, "Oh Lord, or oh man of God, we have a problem. Our town is situated, it's located in a pleasant surrounding as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is unproductive". And so Elisha said this, "Bring me a bowl with salt in it". Actually, the Scripture says more specifically, "Bring me a new bowl".
It's very important for this message. "Bring me a new bowl with salt in it". And so they did and he went down to the stream that fed the town with water and he threw the salt in it. And then he looked at the leaders of Jericho and he says this, "The word of the Lord is see, I have purified the water and I have caused healing to come to the land so that it will no longer cause death or infertility". The water was bad. The land was not producing any crops. If you can't drink water there, you're going to eventually die. Your body has to have water. It has to have food. And so if there's no crops, you can't eat the crops. And if there's no grass, there's nothing like that growing, then the animals that would produce the meat can no longer eat and they were dying. This is a major problem.
And so this is why they went to the man of God. And so I have three major points for you. I'm gonna talk about bad water. I'm gonna talk about the new bowl and then lastly, I'm gonna talk about how he threw salt into the water. So bad water. I mean, that's an interesting comment or an interesting description of the town. The reason for that is when you look at the town, it's surrounded with a pleasant view. It's located in pleasant surroundings. If you and I were on a mountain and we look down at it or we look at it from a distance. If there were pictures of it, we would say, wow, everything is perfect there. Have you ever looked at somebody? And you're like, "My goodness, do you have any problems at all"?
I went to my dentist the other day and the owner, the doctor, is just always happy and go lucky and chippy and always in a good mood and it kind of rubs me a little bit. And I think to myself, "Is your life perfect? Do you have any problems at all"? And I look at him and I'm like, "You seem to be planted in a pleasant location". But what the leaders of Jericho are saying is, hey, things aren't going as good as it looks. From the outside looking in everything's perfect, but from the inside looking out, it is extremely painful. We are having the worst challenges anyone can have. People are dying. People are sick. And so bad water is when everything is perfect except for one thing. It's kinda like you love your home, but if there's a leak in the roof, that's bad water.
If there's a leak right above your bed in the bedroom, your favorite place in the house is no longer your favorite place. Everything is perfect except for one thing, that's bad water. If you enjoy your car, it's a blessing. You don't even think about it. It's gonna be there every single day. It's there in the morning. It takes you wherever you need to be, you don't even think about it. But if this nice car that you have all of a sudden blows a tire, everything's perfect about the car except for one thing, it's bad water because it just ruined everything. I saw a lady, my heart broke for her, but I couldn't help her. She was walking down the street. She had high heels. One of the heels snaps. Beautiful shoes, broken heel, bad water. It's like everything was perfect until boom, bad water. One thing goes wrong.
I was on my way to church one time. I was wearing a white dress shirt. I stopped at Starbucks because that is the drink that comes from heaven itself. Did you know that if you drink black coffee, there is not one calorie inside of that drink? Only the living God can do something like that. But anyway, I was drinking the coffee and you know, I feel like we are supposed to be in control of when that coffee comes from inside of the cup to outside. That's our decision. We hold the cup, we put it to our lips, we put our tongue on the hole to make sure that it's not over here, that'd be a problem, and you drink it. You have decided. But on that particular day, the coffee decided when it was going to come out. I don't know how it happened. I brought the cup down, out comes the coffee straight on my white shirt, bad water. The people of the town were saying we got bad water.
Can I just say this one statement? That do not let the most painful part of your life to become the end of the story. Don't back up. Come on, put your hands together for that. Don't back up in a season of pain and think to yourself, "This is never gonna change". All seasons have an expiration date on it. Girlfriend, boy, I'm telling you, my boy just hang on, just hang on. God will change that season. In Daniel chapter 2 verse 21, it says this that God changes the times and the seasons. He's the one that looks at you and said, I know that bad water is making you sick. It's time for that season to change. Just hang on, just hang on. Say hang on three times. Come on, let me hear you. Just hang on.
Let's talk about that new bowl. When Elisha said, "Bring me a new bowl with salt in it". He didn't say bring me a bowl. Said, bring me a new bowl. Give me some poetic license here. There was one guy in the group who had a new bowl. Elisha had a bowl. Everybody had a bowl. There's everybody in the town has a bowl, but one guy was like, "I got a new bowl. I'm the only one with the new bowl. The man of God has a word from God and it's just for me, this is incredible".
He looks to his friends, "I can't believe this is happening. I have been praying for God to do something in my life. I've been praying for God to help me. All of a sudden, he pretty much calls me by name. Who here has a new bowl? I got a new bowl". He looks around. Nobody else has their hand up. I got a new bowl. You know, when you stay faithful and then all of a sudden, God does something. It's like, oh my goodness. You get on the phone. You're like, "You're not gonna believe this. You're not gonna believe this". The people who stay faithful are the only people who say, "You're not gonna believe this. God came through. God came through". Come on.
One of my favorite events in the Olympics is the track and field, but particularly when they race around the track. Now when you have eight guys in the eight lanes, if they all were to line up in a straight line, the advantage would go to the person on the inside of the lane, the person on the outside of the lane would have a massive disadvantage because the person on the inside is running a shorter circle than the person on the outside lane. And so for that reason, all the runners are staggered. The person in the first lane has to start considerably behind the person in the second lane and that goes for the second to the third, all the way up to the eighth. And so if I can kind of show you with my hands, the best I can, is the eighth person, the eighth lane is way out here and the first person is way out there and they gotta race around.
So what's fascinating is when the gun goes off and the race begins, you can't tell who's winning. The person in the first lane is very discouraged when that gun goes off because everyone is beating him. The only thing that's on his mind is, "As soon as I take that corner, everything's gonna change". He's got his eye on that corner. "I know it looks like I'm losing. I know it looks like things are bad but if I can just get to that corner, everything's gonna change". I just wanna tell you that if you can just stay faithful, if you can just stay put just like that leader in Jericho, he just stayed faithful. He kept believing in God. And then that moment came, who's got a new bowl? I just wanna say, stay faithful. You don't know when that corner is going to shift. You don't know.
I remember when my wife and I started the church and we had three people from the city of the Woodlands show up to our first service. I told Allie, "I can't preach to three people. I can't talk to three people and now I can preach to 10 people, but I can't preach to three". It took us probably a month for 10 people to come. Then we got to 15 and it stayed there for a long time. We got to 25 and it stayed there. I was just feeling terrible. A preacher got up there and told the illustration of the track that I just shared with you. I started crying in the audience because I felt the Spirit of the Lord saying, "Don't worry, Frankie, you're gonna take the corner of the track. You don't know when it's gonna happen but when you do everything's gonna change".
The third point is how Elisha threw salt into the stream that led to the water that fed the town. Now, when I read this, I said, "This makes no sense". Makes no sense. If you want drinking water, you do not throw salt in the water. If you've ever been at a beach and you're sitting in your lawn chair in the sand and you say, "Oh my goodness. I am thirsty". You do not, you're ahead of me, you do not grab a cup and go marching out to the beach into the sand, into the water, and scoop up a big glass of water and go, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug. You don't do that. In fact, if you say, "Oh my goodness, I'm hot. I need to cool off. I'm gonna go get in the ocean".
So you go marching out into the ocean. When you get into the ocean, you make sure that if your head goes under that water, you're gonna squeeze your eyes so tight, you're gonna push your eyeballs to the back of your head because you know if that salt water gets into your eyes, it's going to burn like fire. And what else do you do? You keep, it's like a Ziploc bag, because if that water gets in your mouth, if it gets in your eyes, you got a big problem. Elisha saying, "You want fresh water? You want water to be purified? Go get me a big bowl with salt". Makes no sense. But the leaders say, "All right, all right, that's fine. We'll do it".
They go and they get salt, they throw it in and the Bible says the Lord says that it will cause, the water will cause no more death. Well, we just found out people were dying. It will cause no more infertility. We didn't know that there was an infertile situation going on out in the field and probably several other areas as well. "We didn't know that but we were just being obedient," said the leaders, "we threw salt made no sense". Salt had nothing to do with purifying water. They were obedient in one area and it directly affected the other area. Never underestimate that obedience not only changes what you're believing for, but it begins to change all the other areas of your life at the very same time.
Let me give an illustration. In 2017, I went and ran the New York City marathon. We kind of ran through all five boroughs. Well, my brother came with me to New York and after the race, I went out with him and, and my cousin and we went to this Italian restaurant and it was so cool because it was hard to find. My brother found it, it was recommended on Google or whatever. And it was like this small door and when you opened up the door, it's like your living room was bigger than the entire restaurant. We walk in and the owner comes walking up to us and clearly, he's an Elvis fan because he dresses and looks like Elvis. Clearly on purpose. Pork chops, hair up. And when he talks to us, he's like, "Hey, what do you feel like eating"?
That's exactly what he did. Hey, what do you feel like eating? I'm like, "Man, you're all in on this gig. You're all in". We sat down and we had the greatest time. We were laughing. Elvis was laughing. It was so much fun. And so last year, my wife and I, and my daughter, we were celebrating her graduation or whatever you call that. It was our senior trip if you will. We go back to New York and I'm like, "Hey, we have to go see Elvis. He really is alive". We go back. He comes in. "Hey, how are you"? My wife, my daughter, I'm just like, "Hey, just be patient. It's gonna get better". We walk in and he looks at me and he's like, "Hey, aren't you the guy from Houston"?
I had a tear run out of my eye. I was like, "Hug me. Come on, hug me". He really said that. We had a great time and I looked over and there were bottles of wine and guess what the label was on the bottle of wine? Him, a picture of him. So I said, "I'm gonna buy that bottle of wine for my brother so that we can remember 2017". So I buy the bottle of wine. I come back. It was his birthday last year. I give him the bottle of wine. He's like he thought it was just wine. He's like, "Oh, hey Frankie," he goes, "Elvis"!
Now I knew when I bought it, he knew when he received it. He was never gonna drink the wine. He was gonna set it on the most special part of the living room on the mantle so he can look at it. It was just a great time. But when he received it, he left it and went home. He accidentally forgot it. I was like, yes. I wanted to put the bottle of wine up in my living room and look at it. So I was like, shame on you, it's mine now. He calls me. I forgot. I was like, "Yeah, I'll bring it". He always forgets to ask for it. I always forget to bring it. It's been exactly 11 months because his birthday is next month. And I'm just like he keeps coming to my mind, coming into my mind, come to my mind. I'm like, "Holy Spirit, I didn't ask you. I did not invite you to help me make a decision here".
But I've been believing God for miracles. I've been believing God for a miracle in this area of my life, in this area of my life. And so finally, he keeps coming to my mind, coming to my mind. I was like, "All right, I'll give him the bottle of wine back". And wouldn't you know he stopped coming in my mind. The burden was released and I started seeing the answer to my prayers. An act of disobedience can affect everything very negatively even if it has not nothing to do with what you're believing for. However, an act of obedience, even though it doesn't have anything to do with other things in your life. It causes a miracle to take place in those areas. Come on, put your hands together for that.
What are we talking about? Let me kind of summarize the entire thing. Bad water is that one area that nobody knows about. It's that one area that's ruining everything. It's the area you don't talk about. When we leave the house, you ladies boom boom, mmm, zzzz, shhhh. I used to use Hair Net when I had hair. Anybody know Hair Net hairspray? I'd put Dippity Do. You youngers don't know about that. Dippity Do in the hair, shake it back and forth, curls hanging down, keeer. I had to step out of the cloud. Do you know what I'm talking about? I had to hold my breath. We take so much preparation. We pay attention that when we leave that house, everything is good. But you and I, we're all, this is the common denominator, this is the common denominator that all of us have.
Every single one of us is believing for a miracle. Everything that we look at is maybe okay. But we know in our heart there's one thing that's messing everything up, bad water. The new bowl, keep in mind there will be a moment where you look around and you go, "Oh my goodness. This is what I was believing God for". In Psalms 56:9 it says the very day you call for help, if you called for help today, this is what happened. The very day you call for help the tide of the battle turns. You may not see it immediately, but it is going to happen. You, God has looked at you and said, "I know you're in a tough season. It'll shift soon. Just stay faithful".
How many of us have called someone before and said, "You're not gonna believe this. You're not gonna believe this"? My daughter had a friend in high school and we would watch how she lived her life and we would think, "Oh my goodness, you are sabotaging your life. You have gone mad". And we just kind of lost track of her for about three or four years. All of a sudden, I have a friend of mine he's got worship playing on his phone and I said, "Will you share that playlist with me"? Because those are the best worship songs I've ever heard compiled.
And I said, "Did you make that yourself"? And I know him, he's a good friend of mine. He says, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no". And he, I said, "Where did you get it"? He said, "From that girl that grew up". I said, "What in the world happened"? He goes, "I don't know the girl, you know, but the girl I know she's grown up, she's godly. She's a worshiper". There was a moment where she took the curve and everything changed.