YOUR SET TIME 2 Kings 7:1-7:18
Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says: About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria. The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?” “You will see it with your own eyes,” answered Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it!”
The Siege Lifted Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”
At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, not a man was there, for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!” So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.
The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also.
Then they said to each other, “We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”
So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, “We went into the Aramean camp and not a man was there—not a sound of anyone—only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were.” The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported within the palace.
The king got up in the night and said to his officers, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving; so they have left the camp to hide in the countryside, thinking, ‘They will surely come out, and then we will take them alive and get into the city.’ “
One of his officers answered, “Have some men take five of the horses that are left in the city. Their plight will be like that of all the Israelites left here—yes, they will only be like all these Israelites who are doomed. So let us send them to find out what happened.”
So they selected two chariots with their horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army. He commanded the drivers, “Go and find out what has happened.” They followed them as far as the Jordan, and they found the whole road strewn with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown away in their headlong flight. So the messengers returned and reported to the king. Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, as the Lord had said. Now the king had put the officer on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate, and the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died, just as the man of God had foretold when the king came down to his house. It happened as the man of God had said to the king: “About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”
2 Kings 7:1-7:18 YOUR SET TIME!
Our text tells us of a famine condition that existed, and in the midst of a famine condition the man of God speaks a word of promise that has attached to it a (A set time: Tomorrow about this time)
In God’s word for every promise, for every prophecy, and for every dream there is a set time.
A SET TIME is an appointed time for that prophetic word, or that promise, or that dream to be manifested.
When a seed is sown, there is a process that the seed goes through before there can be a harvest.
But as surely as the seed is planted, if it is kept in the ground and properly cared for there will be a due season and harvest will come.
HOW TO WAIT ON GOD is one of the most dificult and challenging lessons for believers to learn.
We get a prophecy and we think it should happen the next day, and when it doesn’t happen in a week we get concerned, three months and we see nothing then we get really concerned, a year comes and goes and we get extremely worried, 5 years passes and we think God forgot all about us, or maybe we just imagined it all or it was wishful thinking.
IT’S A PROCESS
Every dream, every seed, every promise must go through THE PROCESS .
Psalms 105:19 “Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him.”
YES, you will be tried, Yes, it will be difficlt, Yes, it will be frustrating, and Yes, at times it will feel hopless BUT
Joseph had a word from God, (a dream) and that word from God tested him,
He was tested by TIME IN WAITING to see if he would hold to that word (dream) or if he would forsake it.
Time is the great sifter through which all of our dreams must pass.
TIME tests our faith, it challenges us to prove whether we believe God or not.
It is critically important what we do during our waiting season.
Waiting while grumbling? Or Waiting while praising?
There is a set time for your word, your dream, your promise to come to pass.
God has established a time for that word to be manifested.
Just as Hannah carried the Prophet Samuel in her womb for 9 months and millions of other women have done the same, in the spiritual sense You and I must also carry the promised word of the Lord, the dream, or the vision, in our spiritual womb until due season.
When a woman gets pregnant, at first you cant tell by looking, then one day, you can tell it because of changes that start taking place, Her body changes, her apetitie, her desires, her plans.. it all starts changing as she prepares for her baby.
She thinks pregnant, everything she looks at tells you she’s expecting, she talks pregnant, and in a little while she walks pregnant.
You notice that as she gets closer to due date she becomes uncomfortable, She doesn’t fit in the clothes she used to wear, she doesn’t sit where she used to sit.
Then one day it is due season, the set time for the baby to be born.
When you are really pregnant with a promise from God you become dissatisfied with the things of life the way they’ve always been, there is a divine discontent that begins to grow in you. You have an expectation of something greater, and that expectation of something greater makes you spiritually uncomfortable.
A pregnant woman has a tendency to experience extreme mood swings, For no reason at all she may burst out crying.
That is true spiritually too, when you are near delivery or manifestation of your promise, there are strong emotions that begin to stir in your spirit. It could be crying one minute, and shouting the next,
Just as in the natural there is a struggle before the birth, so it is in the spiritual, There is usually a great warfare just before manifestation! satan will do everything he can to get you to cast away your confidence and to abort your promise.
In our text, God established a set time and said “tomorrow about this time where there has been famine there will be plenty, where there has been lack there will be abundance.” For those who believed God this brought great joy to their hearts, but the truth is from a natural perspective nothing changed for the better when the word was spoken (in fact before the breakthrough came it actually got worse than ever) even to the point of cannibalism, they were eating their own children. I can’t think of anything that would be worse.
When every natural evidence disputed the word of God, and when from all visible circumstantial evidence it looked as if it was getting worse instead of better, All of a sudden the report came from 4 lepers outside the city gate, that there was food in abundance, and in an instant the famine was broken, and the word of God was manifested at the set time according to the word of the prophet.
While everything inside the city was getting worse, and every natural evidence was disputing and defying the word of God,
Outside the city gate God was working.
He inspired 4 lepers to get up from where they were and go to the Syrian camp. As they walked, God caused the Syrian army to hear a sound as if it were a great army marching toward them, and they fled in fear leaving an abundant supply of food and other things behind them!!
Let me encourage you; Just before your breakthrough you are likely to experience the greatest contradiction to your promise. This is the time to PUSH!
P.U.S.H: Pray Until You See Something Happen!
Gal 6:9 “Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap (if) we faint not.”
That word faint means: to loosen, dissolve, to crack, to break down,
You can actually come to your set time, and be in your due season for the manifestation of your promises, then because you faint =, crack, dissolve, loosen, break down (you can abort your promise).
Please be encouraged again that if it seems all hell is broken loose against you, that is the greatest evidence that you are on the verge of manifestation, or the birth of your promises!
• There is something more certain than your circumstances and that is THE Word OF THE LORD!!!
• If you BELIEVE, you will receive!
If you DOUBT, you’ll do without!
• Don’t allow what you see to Stop you from Believing what God said.
Romans 4:17 call those things which do not exist as though they were.
• call – to invite and receive
• Never underestimate Who and What God can Use to bring your breakthrough.
What a difference a day makes.
YES, YOU DO HAVE A SET TIME…
IT COULD BE TODAY, OR IT COULD BE TOMORROW ABOUT THIS TIME!
