Marcus Mecum - Love Them Back To Life - Part 1
Verse 32, "Elisha came into the house, there was the child, lying dead on his bed. He went in therefore, shut the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the Lord. And he went up and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands: and he stretched himself out on the child, and the flesh of the child became," or waxed, "Warm. He returned and walked back and forth in the house, went up and stretched himself on him: and the child sneezed seven times, opened his eyes, and came back to life". He was loved back to life.
Now, this verse begins by saying that this was a great woman. Everybody say, "A great woman". We get to see what the makeup, according to the scripture, according to what heaven sees when it says that a woman is great, we get to see it in this story. I believe we have great women across this church, and I want you to be clear that when heaven looks at you, whether the world sees it or not, there are some specific things that when God looks at you, he says, "That woman is not average, she's not normal, but she is a great woman".
The Bible here says that when Elisha would come to town, that he would often have a meal with this family. And so, the woman comes up with this idea to build an addition on their house so whenever the prophet comes to town, he can actually sleep there, he can live there, he can eat there, he can enjoy everything that he needs to enjoy just there in his house. He's got a chair, he's got a table, all kinds of things that they created so when the prophet would come to town, of all the homes he would be attracted to and drawn to, he would be drawn to the home of this no-name woman that they called the Shunammite woman. And Elisha would show up in this house, he would come to this house, he would enjoy the presence of this family, the family would enjoy the presence of Elisha.
And this teaches us that we have the power to create atmospheres. You and I have the power to create atmospheres that can draw the presence of God, can draw on the favor of God. It can be attracted into your home by the atmosphere that you have the ability to create. This atmosphere, when God is there, can produce miracles in your family that potentially would happen no other way. This woman without the miracle son that she had had would have had no future. So, it wasn't just any kind of miracle, it was a miracle that was required to preserve her entire destiny and future. And it came because of the atmosphere that she created. You and I have the ability to create atmospheres, but specifically, women, if you haven't found this out yet, have the innate ability to create atmospheres.
Maybe by their words, maybe by an attitude, but there's something about an atmosphere that can draw out the best, or it can even draw out the worst in a person. For example, the apostle Simon Peter was a great man, but after Jesus was arrested, the Bible says that he ends up hanging out with a young girl who had created an atmosphere that mocked the things of God, would make light and make fun of Jesus and all that he was doing. And in that atmosphere, she looked at the apostle Simon Peter, and three different times he denied her because her words just triggered the denial in his life. I'm not saying it was her fault that he denied, I'm saying she created an atmosphere, that even though he was great in many atmospheres, in that atmosphere, it pulled the worst out of the apostle.
There's another place in the Bible where Israel had entered the Promised Land, but the Canaanites were oppressing them. They were living in fear. They were not going down the made roads, they were taking detour, little side roads to get places because of the constant intimidation of the Canaanites. They were hiding out. And the Bible says God raised up a woman by the name of Deborah, who would become the judge there in Israel. Just a woman that was anointed. She was a prophetess. She was not just a leader, but she was a woman of great wisdom. She would sit under her own palm tree, they called it the palm tree of Deborah, and she would give counsel and wisdom, and words of knowledge, and words of wisdom. She would prophesy over the nation. But yet, the nation was hiding out in fear.
So, she finally calls on this was hero in Israel, this great general by the name of Barak. And she says, "I want you to come here, and I wanna talk to you". And she says, "I believe that God wants you to lead this nation into war, to overcome the Canaanites, and to help us possess the promise that God has given us". And amazingly, Barak was still afraid, even though he had this prophecy that they were going to get the victory. He looked back at her and said, "I will not go unless you go. But if you go, I'll go". And Deborah steps up. She's not trained like he's trained. She's not a soldier. She has no armor. She has no weapon. But she says to that man, "If me going to battle with you will give you the courage you need, I'll be right by your side".
And the presence of this woman, the atmosphere she created brought courage to an entire nation. Not only did it bring courage to an entire nation, but there was another little homemaker in her tent that the Bible says when they started to push back the enemy, the general of that army by the man by the name of Cicero, runs into this woman's home, this homemaker, this stay-at-home mom. This general of the army is trying to outrun Israel, runs into her home, and she grabs a Hammer and a nail and puts the nail through this evil general's head. The point is this, we think you gotta be some great person to do something great for God, but God knows how to give you what you need in your own home. He knows how to give the homemaker what she needs to defeat whatever the enemy's trying to send into your home to wreak havoc and destruction.
So, one woman steps up, gives a nation courage, gives other women courage because of the atmosphere she created. Jesus' very first miracle would've never happened in the way that it did had his mother not said, "I know you're saying it's not your hour, but it's time for you to get with the ministry that God has called you to". And she says, "Whatever he says to do, do it". And his first miracle happened because Mary created the atmosphere for miracles. So, atmospheres can pull out the best or they can pull out the worst in us. The Bible says that this woman is nameless. She's known as the Shunammite woman because of where she's from, but yet, the Bible calls her great. Great because she created an atmosphere in her home, a place in her home for God.
I love the fact that we have the ability to not just have God in this house, but you can have God in your house. I want to take a minute and just celebrate that God is in this room. But I also wanna celebrate the fact that you can create atmospheres in your home where God can show up just like he shows up here. Have you ever had God ask you, "Can I be in your home? And will you have me at home like you have me in church"? Every now and then, you've gotta be reminded that God's house and your house work together. They work in harmony. That God's house inspires you to go and be your best in your house. And then there in your house, you get God, and you create an environment for his presence. And then you bring that to God's house. And God's house is stronger because your house is stronger. And together, like this symphonic harmony, we build each other up to obey and to follow and to serve the will of God in our families.
So, she creates this atmosphere for God. The word Shunammite means, in Hebrew, a peaceful place. That's what that woman was able to do, just create a peaceful place. She wasn't a great Bible teacher, she wasn't a singer, she wasn't a musician, she wasn't a prophet or a national leader, she was a homemaker. But yet that was her ministry, and that's what God saw and said, "This woman is great". In Titus 2, it says that the older women are to teach the younger women how to create an atmosphere of love for their children and for their husbands. I want you to notice that the older women have a place in the home, and not just the home, but in the body of Christ. They're here to teach the younger women that you don't have to go and look for greatness outside the home.
Nothing wrong with jobs, nothing wrong with careers, nothing wrong with dreams, nothing wrong with any of that, but yet there is still many times, a minimizing in the home of how great our responsibility is, and what God can do in the home is just as great if not greater than what God can do outside the home. And the Bible says this woman was great because she took care of her family. And God says, "That, right there, I don't want anybody to get confused in the big scheme of life and lose sight of the fact that even the women who do, in the world's mind, nothing great on a platform or nothing great in some career way, but they love their children back to life. No matter what has happened in the family, they're there holding the family together, holding the family up". God says, "You're a great woman".
One mom was struggling with her identity and feeling important. She goes to an altar one day, there's an old preacher pastoring that church, and she's just weeping. "I feel like I'm not doing anything for God. I feel like I need to do more. I feel like, you know, is there some way that I can start some ministry? If you were to give me advice, how would I start? How would I begin it? How would I launch this ministry that I feel like God's put in my heart"? And this woman had six children laying on the pew of the church. And that old preacher goes, "One, two, three, four, five, six, you have six major ministries right there on the pew". He had the wisdom to not minimize the ministry that we have in our home. The scripture does not call the prophetess that we read about great, but he calls this homemaker great.
In Acts 21:9, Philip has four daughters, they're all prophetesses. They speak for God, they hear from God and speak his word to that generation, but yet God never calls them great. But God calls this woman, who has no real name, but yet she's building her house, she's building a place for God in her house, and God's thoughts on this woman is, "She's a great woman". So, the prophet Elisha consistently would come to this woman's home, and over time, the prophet starts to think to himself, "I wonder what we can do to be a blessing back to this woman's home". And his servant that hung out with him named Ghazi said, "You know, I've noticed that she doesn't have a son and that her husband's old".
And in that day, if you didn't have a son, you really didn't have a future if your husband died. And so, Elisha says, "Bring her to me". And he starts to tell here, starts to pray for her that God's going to give her a son. And this was so difficult for her to receive because she had already accepted that there was no chance. She'd given up hope, she had completely quit on the idea. But the prophet Elisha says, "I don't want you to give up. One year from now, you're going to have a son".
One year later, this miracle son is born. An absolute miracle that came because of the atmosphere in her home she had created. The son begins to grow. Eventually, he's old enough to go to work with his dad, he's out in the field, they're plowing the field, they're reaping the harvest. They're doing all the things that you do if you're working in a field. I mean, this is backbreaking work. This is backbreaking labor under the heat of the sun, the pressure to get things done in a particular time. There's deadlines, there's all kinds of things that they have to meet to get the harvest in on time. And this son is out there working with his dad, just in the pressures of the field, just the pressure of living life, doing life, having to work hard to provide for the family. And the son falls to the ground, grabs his head and begins to cry out, "My head, my head".
A servant grabs the little boy and brings him back and lays him in the lap of his mom. The reason I love this is because in every family, at some point, every child is attacked somewhere in their mind. Somehow the enemy attacks the mindsets of the next generation. He attacks our minds with depression, minds with discouragement, minds with confusion concerning who they are and what God's called them to, how God's created them and what God's created them to be. And it's an amazing thing that we have a generation, if you'll just listen to it, we have a generation that's crying out, "My head, my head".
And there's an important role that mothers can play in bringing back the sanity to these minds that are under attack in this generation. Mom, listen to me, you can help heal that mind. You can help bring peace to that mind. And you don't just do it by just conforming to whatever the world says. No, God has given you an assignment to lift up the standard in your home and speak life into that child, and speak destiny into that child, and not allow that child to fall into the deceptive lies of our hour and our day and our culture. God has anointed you to bring up the best in that child. That's the atmosphere you create. It's an atmosphere of miracles.
And so, they bring that child and they lay him on the lap of his mom. Because moms have more discernment, many times, than dads do. Dads are out in the field working. They never turn around. They never stop doing what they're doing. Matter of fact, they tell the servant, "Would you take him to his mom"? When your child is in crisis, your job is to stay with them, and discern, and ask God for supernatural wisdom, "What do I do"? Because they're under attack in their mind. They're under attack in the way that they're thinking. And it takes incredible discernment to know how to navigate, sometimes, the areas that the enemy's attacking our families.
I love that Jesus is on the cross. He's hanging there bleeding, surrounded by an atmosphere of being mocked and laughed at, savages everywhere. They brutally beat him. But notice this tough man, this man who could endure extreme punishment, no complaining, no weeping, no throwing in the towel. But yet here he is in his troubled moment, being crucified, asking for his mom. He's so human that in his greatest moment of trouble and struggle, his mom is on his mind. Which tells me that no matter what it looks like they're going through, no matter how desperate it seems, no matter how it looks like there's no hope, somehow, someway, if you'll keep creating that atmosphere in the home, that atmosphere of faith, I can promise you that they may be thinking about a lot of things, but their mom, their mom is on their mind. You are on their mind.
Those seeds that you've sown into their heart, those seeds of potential that you sown, that is on their mind when the enemy is trying to destroy their life. The mom begins to rock her child. Hours go by. Hours and hours go by. But her child is her top priority. She doesn't care about anything but seeing her child get better. And the Bible says no matter what she does to love, to nurture, to care, her child dies. She doesn't run out to her husband and say, "You stupid idiot. How could have you ever, he was half dead and you wouldn't stop working long enough to bring him to me? Now he's dead over there. And what is wrong with", she didn't do any of that. She knew her husband was under pressures of his own, she didn't wanna break his spirit, which is so beautiful, just the strength of a woman. He ends up asking her, "What's going on? What happened to the son"?
And you know what she says? "Everything's all right. All is going to be well". In other words, she was saying, "I know there's going to be a time I have to talk to you about that, but first, me and God are going to get together on this situation". It wasn't that she was being secretive, it's that she just wasn't jumping to conclusion. She was taking her time, getting the heart of God on the matter, and making sure that her and God got together to take care of it. And so, she said, "It shall be well". She was just speaking life over a dead situation. So, she takes her son, she lays him in the bed of the prophet. You've heard the saying, "You've made your bed, now lie in it".
Well, that's what she did. She was so filled with faith because she didn't wait for the tragedy to strike to get her priorities right, she created this spiritual atmosphere long before the tragedy struck. Long before the trouble hit her home, she had built a bed of faith. And we have to remember that sooner or later, crisis will come to every family, and if you wait for the crisis to show up to create the atmosphere or to build that bed of faith, many times it's too difficult. You have to begin to do it now. Many times, even in my own family, Sarah and I have been in situations where we wonder, "How is this going to affect the kids? How are they going to deal with this? This is tragic, this is traumatic, this is overwhelming even to us".
And I'm not talking about unnecessarily burdening them, but I'm saying at times there's no way to keep the tragedy away from the family. And it's in those time, you just have to simply say, "God, I've done what I can do. I'm not you. I'm flawed. I'm imperfect. I'm weak. I don't have it all together. I've made some mistakes. But yet, even in spite of all of that, we've continued to lift you up in our home and we've continued to point you out as the one that they can go to no matter what lets them down in life".
We've built that bed for them. And every now and then, you even have to, with your own family, say, "You know what, my hands can do nothing about this situation. My influence can do nothing about this situation. But I know I can lay you down in the bed of faith, and I can say to God, 'my hand's short, but your hand is not short. And I give this situation and this tragedy to you. It's gonna require a miracle, but I give it to you'".