By Olubunmi Adebayo
*There were four of them.*
*They were lepers.*
*They were, by being lepers, outcasts that other people have nothing to do with.*
*An outcast, for your information is someone who is seen as a misfit in a society.*
*An outcast can also be seen as somebody subject to the law of exclusion in a system.*
*A fellow that should be avoided for one environmental reason or the other.*
*An outcast can also mean an outsider in a system. Someone who does not belong.*
*It can also be explained to mean a fellow that the law of banishment has been applied against.*
*A leper, a criminal, a thief, all fall within this categorization of people.*
*But this same set of people were the ones that God gave the inspirational message that delivered a city under siege and devastation.*
*Yes, the story was the story of the city of Samaria. Please read this in some details :*
*2 Kings 6: [24] And it came to pass after this, that Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria.*
*[25] And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver.*
*The devastation of Samaria was so serious that people were feeding on their children to survive :*
*2 Kings 6 [28] And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son to morrow.*
*[29]So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.*
*In the midst of this terrible situation of the city of Samaria, four lepers emerged as national heroes who made the difference.*
*They were the rejects of the land. They were the people nobody wanted to associate with.*
*You could almost say of them that can any good thing come from such a category of people?*
*But these were the same set of people that God sent to bring a message of comfort and relief in the case of the city of Samaria :*
*2 Kings 7: [9] Then they said one to another (the four lepers), We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king’s household.*
*[10] So they came and called unto the porter of the city: and they told them, saying, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and, behold, there was no man there, neither voice of man, but horses tied, and asses tied, and the tents as they were.*
*[15]And they went after them unto Jordan: and, lo, all the way was full of garments and vessels, which the Syrians had cast away in their haste. And the messengers returned, and told the king.*
*[16]And the people went out, and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD.*
*The people that were hopeless and hungry in Samaria, through the message of the four lepers became well fed.*
*The earlier prophecy of Elisha that food would become cheap at the gate of Samaria needed these lepers as catalyst of fulfillment :*
*2 Kings 7: [1] Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the LORD; Thus saith the LORD, To morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.*
*The four lepers, even as outcasts, allowed themselves to be used by God to bring the news that accomplished the time defined prophecy – “tomorrow, about this time.”*
*Note and know that even as outcasts, the four lepers were in the plan and program of God.*
*We as humans may not have plans for such people, but not God. While prophet Elisha was prophesying of events to happen 24 hours later, God already had it in mind who He would use to come and deliver this message.*
*Finally, be careful who you condemn around you. Things we look down on, can become great tools of help to us. God didn’t send soldiers or ambassadors or ministers to the palace in Samaria, but lepers, of all people. The ways of God are not the ways of men. In fact the ways of God are passed finding out.*
*Tomorrow God willing, we shall be looking at lessons we can learn from the actions of these four lepers, men we see in our definition as outcasts.*
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©️ Olubunmi S Adebayo.
